Ever since the World Health Organisation declared the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, a pandemic, the race is on to develop the first vaccine. Several nations that include India, the United States, United Kingdom, China, Israel and others are pumping in money into research and development to come up with a watertight vaccine that can battle the virus.
Historically, just 6 per cent of vaccines end up making it to market, often after a years-long process that doesn’t draw big investments until testing shows a product is likely to work. But the traditional rules of drug and vaccine development are being tossed aside in the face of a virus that has infected over 30 lakh people, killed more than 2,00,000 and devastated the global economy. With COVID-19, the goal is to have a vaccine identified, tested and available on a scale of hundreds of millions of doses in just 12 to 18 months.
At least 89 coronavirus vaccines are in development, according to the World Health Organization, but that number may actually be double of what WHO is predicting. With the race to develop the vaccine, there is only hope and assumptions at the moment.
However, David States, the Chief Medical Officer Angstrom Bio, based out of Austin, Texas, argues that developing a vaccine for COVID-19 may take longer than a year because of the complexity of the virus.
In a series of tweets, States explains that a vaccine will need to induce durable high-level immunity, but coronavirus does not induce that kind of immunity.
“While initial estimates for R0 were in the ~2.5 range, more recent estimates suggest it’s in the 3 to 5 range, and some individuals really do seem to be super spreaders shedding huge numbers of virus,” he tweeted.
The R0 describes how many cases of a disease an infected person will go on to cause. It is the average number of people in a region each infected person passes the coronavirus to. If the R0 is greater than 1, then the pandemic is growing; if it is lesser than one, then the pandemic is slowing down.
India’s R0 has shown a credible decline, peaking at 4, and then plunging down to 1.7. It is now estimated to be around 1.36. However, it varies from state to state, according to a Times Now report.
While States thread has raised concerns, it hasn’t stopped nations from constantly working to develop the vaccine.
Here are some of the nations that have been working to develop the COVID-19 vaccine. While we may focus primarily on India’s efforts, this article will also showcase what other nations are doing or have done.
What is India doing?
According to a release by the PM, Indian companies have come across as innovators in early-stage vaccine development research. More than 30 vaccines against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) are in different stages of development and a few are going to trial stages in India even as existing drugs are being repurposed.
Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) will attempt to artificially grow the virus in human cell line, enabling test tube testing of potential drugs and vaccines against the novel coronavirus, Hindustan Times reported
Simultaneously, the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru is also working towards developing a vaccine for COVID-19. “The goal is to develop a rapidly producible vaccine for protection to front-line health workers, senior citizens and individuals with co-morbidities such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes,” the institute said in a statement.
Pune-based Serum Institute of India, too, is working actively with Oxford University to develop the vaccine. Serum Institute of India, which is the world’s largest producer of vaccines by volume, has already started manufacturing a potential vaccine, feeling that it has shown success in animal trials and had progressed to tests on humans, a Reuters report said. The institute is also working with Codagenix, an American biotech firm, to develop a ‘live attenuated’ vaccine.
Other companies like Bharat Biotech, Zydus, Premas Biotech, Hester Biosciences, as well as start-ups like Neuberg Supertech and Mynyax have also joined in the efforts to develop a vaccine.
Other countries developing a vaccine to fight the novel coronavirus include USA, UK, China, Israel, Germany, and The Netherlands just to name a few and hopefully, once the first vaccine is out in the market, States’ Twitter thread can be proved wrong, and in all honesty, he will be the first one to be glad he was wrong. If he is right, however, social distancing will have to continue for a long, long time.
