The desperation for the Coronavirus Virus
The coronavirus, or the Covid-19, to be more specific, for almost a year now, is posing the biggest challenge to human society. Big and small economies, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, all have succumbed to the vicious virus. Global cases keep rising daily. Building a herd immunity and carrying on with life naturally seems like a far-fetched dream. Second and third waves of the virus return to haunt the normal proceedings of daily human life. At this stage, all that the world hopes for, perhaps even more than a stable income, is the covid vaccine. Large pharmaceutical and biotech companies, along with the most prominent research institutions, are working through thick and thin to develop a competent covid 19 vaccine.
Multinational collaborations, combined research, and intercontinental endeavors have sprung up. However, though countless vaccines have been manufactured, it is the all-crucial coronavirus vaccine trials where the vaccines fail to qualify. The coronavirus explicitly affects the immune systems of the infected and becomes fatal with the presence of susceptible comorbidities. Typically, unquestionable coronavirus immunization is what the coronavirus vaccine testing and the coronavirus vaccine human trials seek most desperately.
The process of COVID 19 Vaccine testing
The coronavirus turned out to be more unpredictable and complex than previously imagined. The challenges to tackle the virus only increased with the subsequent failures in producing a successful coronavirus vaccine. A few days ago, Vladimir Putin declared how Russia developed a successful covid 19 vaccine, the Sputnik -V coronavirus vaccine that underwent all the 3 phases of the covid vaccine trials and was ready for distribution. Soon after, the development turned into a hoax, much like the renewed assurances from the covid vaccine trials from universities like Oxford, Cambridge, California, and Harvard. There are, in total, 4 biomedical clinical trial phases for coronavirus vaccine testing:
- Phase I tests new drugs in a small group of the population at first. It is to understand a safe dosage range and side effects.
- Treatments in Phase II are similar to phase I provided that those treatments are safe but conducted in larger subject groups to check adverse effects.
- Phase III trials are treated on larger populations in varied provinces, districts, regions, and nations.
- Experiments in Phase IV happen upon a country’s approval and require extended testing in a vast population in a longitudinal manner.
Phase III trials
Though most vaccines managed to clear phase I and phase II of the coronavirus vaccine trials, it is phase III where results have been disappointing. Phase III typically entails the coronavirus vaccine human trials over larger populations. It is 100% efficient that will secure a proper global resistance. We will see how some companies have till now managed to reach 95% efficiency after their coronavirus vaccine human trials.
Where the global Coronavirus Vaccine Trials stand
Biotech and pharmaceutical giants like Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech, are the most ahead in the race to attain the most competent coronavirus vaccine. Additionally, Pfizer and BioNTech, the German American pharmaceutical and biotech companies, have successfully completed phase III of their coronavirus vaccine human trials and, according to recent reports from the World Health Organization, have secured 95% efficiency across a broad and diverse range of subjects’ populations. The recent update enlisted on the 18th of November 2020 features the following:
- Primary efficiency analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against covid 19 beginning 28 days after the first dose; 170 confirmed cases of coronavirus were evaluated, with 162 observed under placebo group against 8 in the coronavirus vaccine group
- Efficiency turned out to be consistent across gender, race, age, and ethnicities; efficiency was observed in adults over 65 years of age to be over 94%
- Managed to achieve the Safety data milestone denoted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)
- Results showed that the coronavirus vaccine was safely adopted by all populations (more than 43,000 participants enrolled), and no serious safety concerns were recorded; the only adversity was fatigue at 3.8% and headache at 2.0%
The companies will be able to produce almost 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 all over the globe. They also hope to produce 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.
Moderna Vaccine trials
Moderna, on the other hand, also conducted a successful phase III covid vaccine trials and managed to achieve 95.4% efficiency against the coronavirus, according to their report on the 16th of November 2020. The Moderna vaccine trial came as another ray of hope, along with Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus vaccine trials. Upon the groundbreaking Moderna phase 3 results, the company assured over 1 billion doses by the end of 2021. However, the company promises the first 100 million doses to its home nation of the United States.
Regional perspectives and the future of the trials
While global progress in the coronavirus vaccine trials has pacified the long tensions of the pandemic, the fact remains that if a coronavirus vaccine were successfully approved, it would break the previous record of four years for new vaccine development.
Three companies with vaccines in the final phases of the coronavirus vaccine human trials in the United States: Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca, only hope for competent results by the end of 2020. China, for instance, has shown the world how to control the spread of the virus effectively. Now, they are also marching ahead in the race for the coronavirus vaccine. China now has five successfully running major coronavirus vaccine trials. The Chinese have 5 covid 19 vaccines which are presently undergoing stage III coronavirus vaccine human trials in Brazil, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, and Peru.
Some other coronavirus vaccines are undergoing phase I and II covid 19 trials. At the moment, the Serum Institute of India has almost completed the final phase of coronavirus vaccine human trials, and its follow-up is under process. Bharat Biotech has also commenced the Phase 3 coronavirus vaccine trials. Zydus Cadila has recently completed phase II of its coronavirus vaccine trial.
The United States government has actively sponsored Moderna vaccine trial efforts, with almost $1 billion in support. National Institutes of Health partnered with the United States government and found that the Moderna coronavirus vaccine protected monkeys from contracting the coronavirus. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump’s promise of 100 million coronavirus vaccine doses by the end of the year still seems complicated.
Multinational collaborations and intensive research are all desperately working towards a global coronavirus immunization. Additionally, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, India, and China so far have shown significant hopes and continue to enforce the first 100% efficient coronavirus vaccine.
