The World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced that there are now more than 70 COVID-19 vaccines being developed globally; three of these are now in their human trials and clinical evaluation stages. Two vaccines in the United States and one in China are the leading candidates.
WHO reveals that more than 70 COVID-19 vaccines are being developed worldwide, 3 are now in the human trials phase
According to the WHO, as told by The Daily Mail, all three leading candidates, which are from companies in the United States and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology with Hongkong's CanSino Bio, are now undergoing human trials. This information was from a list by the World Health Organization that was released this weekend.
The rest of the 67 vaccines which are being developed all over the world are also working tirelessly towards human trials. The WHO's list was published as the global death count due to COVID-19 has passed 100,000.
The WHO said in a statement that "Under WHO's coordination, a group of experts with diverse backgrounds is working towards the development of vaccines against COVID-19. The group makes a call to everyone to follow recommendations to prevent the transmission of the COVID-19 virus and protect the health of individuals."
Their list also showed that the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology is working hand-in-hand with Hong Kong's CanSino Bio, and is now leading the battle with the vaccine that they have developed called Ad5-nCOV. CanSino has said in a listing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that they are currently planning to move to phase 2 of clinical trials in China soon with the genetically engineered vaccine that is considered to be a candidate.
The first US-based drug company, Massachusetts-based Moderna, has already received regulatory approval to move to human trials last month. The second company, however, Pennsylvania-based Inovio Pharmaceuticals, already began human trials last week.
Drug industries are trying to shorten development time
On the WHO's list, the remaining 67 vaccines are in the preclinical evaluation phase. These include studies at the Osaka University in Japan, Imperial College London, University of Oxford, and Univerity of Queensland, and other institutes across these countries.
According to a report from Bloomberg, "The drug industry is hoping to shorten the time it takes to get a vaccine to market - usually about 10 to 15 years - to within the next year, but public health officials say it will still take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine - despite human trials beginning."
A professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford, Sarah Gilbert, said that her team is 80% confident that the vaccine they are currently developing will work based on previous research with similar vaccines.
However, researchers from the said university have told the The Telegraph that "the best-case scenario is that by the autumn of 2020 we have the results about the effectiveness of the vaccine from a phase III trial and the ability to manufacture large amounts of the vaccine,"
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