Beijing: The total number of coronavirus cases globally has crossed 12-million and the death rate has reached up to 550,000. Currently, more than 100 vaccines are at various stages of development worldwide, including India, Britain, US, China, Russia and Israel.
The deadly coronavirus is finding it’s new victims worldwide every day, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly seems to confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus might linger in the air indoors, infecting those nearby. If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation,the consequences for containment will be significant.
China’s Sinovac Biotech, China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and AstraZeneca’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine are the only other candidates in late-stage Phase III trials. There’s pressure from governments on pharmaceutical companies and scientists to come up with a vaccine as soon as possible.
Moderna, AstraZeneca, BioNTech, Novavax, Sinovac, CanSino Biologics and Inovio Pharmaceuticals are among those leading the race at present. A coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by a unit of China’s Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products has moved into Phase II human trials, the company said on Friday, less than three weeks after it launched clinical trials.
The firm did not provide details of the trial design or results of the Phase I test of the experimental vaccine, being co-developed by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences