As the wold is hoping an end to coronavirus, scientists across the world are still struggling to get a proven remedy.

With Oxford-AstraZeneca’s potential Coronavirus vaccine candidate showing positive results, the race to develop a much-eluded vaccine has entered into an exciting phase. More than 140 vaccines are at the preclinical stage around the world, 27 have managed to reach the human trials, and one has been approved for military use in China.

Let us see what is the current status of the vaccine in various countries:

CHINA

• Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac has started late-stage large scale testing in Brazil.
• A phase II human trial of a potential corona vaccine candidate was conducted in China. Initial results have shown that it is safe and induces an immune response. Scientists said the results provide data from a wider group of participants than their earlier phase I trial, including a small sub-group of participants aged over 55 years and older.
• China’s Sinovac has tied up with the Butantan Institute of Brazil to initiate a three-month large scale test of a coronavirus vaccine. As many as 30 million Brazilians will be vaccinated. Bangladesh has also approved Sinovac for conducting human trials in Dhaka.

US

• The researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis in the US-engineered the mildly infecting vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) which virologists widely use in experiments by swapping one of its genes for one from the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
• According to the study, published in the journal Cell Host and Microbe, the resulting hybrid virus infects cells, and is recognized by antibodies in humans just like SARS-CoV-2, but can be handled under ordinary laboratory safety conditions.
• US-based Moderna is developing a potential Coronavirus vaccine candidate.
• The initial results have shown early promise. The firm will begin Phase 3 trials with 30,000 on July 27.

RUSSIA

• Russia has said its Coronavirus vaccine is ready.
• Its military has said its coronavirus vaccine is available days after Moscow had revealed that potential COVID19 vaccine was tested and found safe.

UK

Oxford developer has categorically stated that the end of the vaccine roll-out is ‘possibility’ but ‘not certainty’.

SINGAPORE

Arcturus and Duke-NUS Medical School have entered Phase 1 and Phase 2. It has also received approval for conducting human trials in Singapore.

NORTH KOREA

North Korea has claimed that it had started clinical trials of a potential Coronavirus vaccine. BioNTech is expected to initiate Phase III trials in July-end.

INDIA

• India’s two potential Coronavirus vaccines, COVAXIN Aand ZydusCadila, are in phase 1 and 2 of human trials.
• The human trials of India’s indigenous COVAXIN are beginning in AIIMS-Delhi, Redkar Hospital in Goa, and Bhubaneswar’s Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital.
• The clinical trials of the potential vaccine, which is being developed by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), and National Institute of Virology, Pune, has begun at AIIMS Patna and PGI Rohtak.
• Clinical trials of the Covaxin will also begin at Medical institutes and hospitals located in Visakhapatnam, Belgaum in Karnataka, Nagpur, Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur and Kanpur, Tamil Nadu’s Kattankulathur, Hyderabad, and Arya Nagar.
• Serum Institute of India (SII) officials have said they will be able to mass-produce Oxford-AstraZeneca’s potential vaccine when it is ready, in India. The price will be Rs 1000 per dose.