Cover Story COVID-19 - Vaccine Development
COVID-19
VACCINE DEVELOPMENT Prof. Dr. D M Vasudevan,
CHALLENGES GALORE
MBBS, MD (Biochem), FRCPath, Technical Director, AGAPPE
In December 2019, a new disease, named as Covid-19 (abbreviation of Corona virus Disease 2019) emerged from Wuhan, China. It has been recognized as a pandemic by WHO, affecting almost all the countries of the world. The first case of the disease was reported in India from Kerala on 30 January 2020. This article presents an overview of this pandemic and discusses the various preventive measures and treatment procedures besides providing an update on the hectic efforts to find a vaccine for Covid-19.
The world continues to be under the grip of the Covid 19
pandemic even as efforts to develop an effective vaccine to fight the disease are on a fast track. However, the challenges to bring out a safe vaccine after proper clinical trials are many. However, such a vaccine is well on the way if the encouraging reports of the ongoing efforts by various countries and organizations are any indication. A new type of pneumonia was detected in the Wuhan Province of China, in December 2019 and the disease was named as Coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19). The virus producing this dis-
ease is named as Sars-CoV-2. The disease is a pandemic affecting all countries of the world. Since there are no effective drugs available, developing an effective vaccine to fight the new disease could be our only ray of hope. As on the last week of August 2020, there are 231 vaccines under various stages of development. About 19 are in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials, while 6 are in phase 3 trial. However, till the end of August, no vaccine has completed clinical trials. Of the candidate vaccines, about 70% are being developed by private companies, with the remaining projects under development by academic, government coalitions, and health organizations. It is hoped that vaccine may be available for the general public by the end of this year. Previous works to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus diseases (SARS and MERS) established considerable knowledge about the structure and function of coronaviruses. Further the genetic sequence of the Covid-19 virus was published in January 2020, which hastened the development of a vaccine.
Technology Platforms Ten different technology platforms are available to produce vaccine against Covid19. These are
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TECHAGAPPE
OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2020
