Coronavirus COVID-19 vaccine news, latest update: India’s vaccine candidates will go through rigorous evaluation process, says govt’s scientific adviser

Coronavirus vaccine in India news, update: Over 150 potential Coronavirus vaccines are being developed across the world. (Reuters image)

Coronavirus vaccine in India news, update: In an encouraging development, K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to Govt of India, said that India’s COVID vaccine candidates will go through rigorous evaluation process that will not be compromised, PTI reported.

Earlier, it was reported that Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is developing indigenous potential vaccine candidates — COVAXIN — for coronavirus in record time, scientist Nivedita Gupta working with the country’s apex biomedical research body said. She revealed that ICMR wants the vaccine to be developed as fast as possible and does not want to “miss the bus”. If ICMR goes into conventional methods to develop the vaccine and bring it out after two years then there is no use of it, she said. ICMR wants to fastrack the development process of the vaccine for coronavirus in order to make it available for people sooner rather than later, as per a PTI report.

Human trial for India’s first potential indigenous coronavirus COVID19 vaccine candidate COVAXIN will commence this week. Over 150 potential Coronavirus vaccines are being developed across the world even as top infectious disease expert of the US Dr Anthony Fauci has said he was cautiously optimistic over the possibility of developing a vaccine for COVID-19 by the end of this year or early 2021.

COVAXIN vaccine update status trial date

COVAXIN is being developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), National Institute of Virology, Pune, and Bharat Biotech. So far, ICMR has identified 12 sites for human trials for the vaccine. COVAXIN will be tested on 375 people for the first phase and then 750 in the later stages. Another potential coronavirus covid19 vaccine candidate, which is being produced by Zydus Cadila, has received approval for Phase I/Phase II trials.

Coronavirus vaccine Oxford, Coronavirus vaccine Moderna

Around the world, 125 potential COVID19 vaccines are at the preclinical phase, 15 coronavirus vaccines are at Phase 1, 10 are at Phase 2, 4 are at Phase 3. A vaccine produced by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca has so far shown positive results. Dr Anthony Fauci has also revealed that a vaccine being developed by US-based Moderna has shown promising results.

Canada-based Medicago has announced a Phase I trial for its vaccine, Maryland-based Novavax has stated that it would get the US government funding. Japan company AnGes has begun Phase I/II trials.

A Chinese vaccine candidate for coronavirus has moved into Phase II human trials. The potential vaccine is being developed by China’s Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products, Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical, and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. However, the Chinese firm did not provide details of the trial design or results of Phase I test of the experimental vaccine. A vaccine by CanSino Biologics in China was approved for military use. Chinese company Sinovac Biotech has moved into Phase III trials.

How vaccines are developed and approved

The testing of vaccines goes through a rigorous trial process before it is being developed. There are five stages- Preclinical Testing, Phase I Safety Trial, Phase II expanded trial, Phase III efficacy trial, and Approved. During the Preclinical Testing, a vaccine is applied to mice or monkeys. During the Phase I Safety Trial, the vaccine is given to a small number of people for safety and dosage. During the Phase II expanded trial, a vaccine is given to hundreds of people by splitting them into age and gender groups. During the Phase III efficacy trial, people are given the vaccine to test the efficacy limits. If a vaccine shows promising results in the aforementioned stages, it gets approval from regulators of the country where the Human or Clinical Trial has taken place.