Prominent Candidates for Global Races, Singapore News & Top Stories

Nearly 200 Covid-19 vaccine candidates are being studied by scientists around the world.

Of these, 44 are already in clinical trials, which means they are being tested in humans.

Here are some of the prominent candidates for the Covid-19 vaccine race.

1 Duke-NUS and Arcturus Therapeutics: Lunar-Cov19

The vaccine was developed by researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School and Singapore at the American pharmaceutical company Arcturus Therapeutics.

Professor Ooi Eng Eong of Duke-NUS has shown that the results so far show that potential vaccines may be effective as a single dose, compared to many other Covid-19 vaccines under development. Varies.

Preliminary findings also show positive reactions in both safety and human immune response.

Late clinical trials, which typically involve thousands to tens of thousands of people across multiple jurisdictions or countries, could begin by the end of this year.

2 Pfizer and BioNTech: BNT162b2

Data from an ongoing large-scale human trial showed that this vaccine developed by two companies was 90 percent effective in preventing Covid-19. It uses synthetic mRNA to activate the immune system against the virus.

Potential vaccines are waiting for safety data. It could come later this month.

However, it must be kept below minus 70 ° C, and most hospitals do not have such storage facilities, which is an obstacle to logistics.

Vaccines can be stored in the ultra-low temperature freezer for up to 6 months or between 2 ° C and 8 ° C for 5 days. This is a type of refrigeration commonly available in hospitals.

3 Moderna remedies: mRNA-1273

A potential vaccine from a Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company, in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, has also reached human experimentation with 30,000 enrolled at 89 sites in 30 states and the District of Columbia.

The company is still monitoring the results of Phase II trials, including testing vaccines in patients with the disease.

Moderna said in May that it would work with Swiss manufacturer Lonza to provide at least 500 million doses of vaccine each year starting next year.

However, in an interview with the New York Times in September, the company said the vaccine was unlikely to be publicly available in the first half of next year.

4 Gamareya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology: Sputnik V

The Russian Ministry of Health said on Monday that the vaccine was more than 90% effective, citing data collected from public vaccination rather than from ongoing trials.

Russia is deploying domestic vaccines, despite the fact that late trials have not yet been completed.

We are preparing to announce preliminary results of a large-scale human experiment underway in Moscow this month for 40,000 people.

5 AstraZeneca: ChAdOx1 nCoV-19

AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom have brought potential vaccines to the final stages of clinical trials in other countries and are currently recruiting up to 50,000 volunteers from Brazil, the United Kingdom, the United States and South Africa.

Preliminary results from the first two clinical trial stages showed that the vaccine evoked a strong immune response-including increased antibody and response from T cells-slight, such as fatigue and headache. It was just a side effect.

However, due to a safety review on September 8, the study was suspended for a month because the patient developed unexplained side effects. The trial was resumed in the United States a month later and is ongoing.

6 Sinovac Biotech: CoronaVac

Corona Vac, a vaccine from a Chinese company Sinovac Biotech that uses a chemically inactivated version of the virus to provoke an immune response, is in the final stages of clinical trials in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey.

However, a trial in Brazil involving 9,000 people was recently canceled by the country’s health regulator, who cited a “harmful case” involving volunteer beneficiaries last month. The announcement was made the day after Pfizer and BioNTech reported that the vaccine was more than 90% effective.

Such suspensions give regulators the opportunity to analyze risks that occur during the course of their research and are not uncommon in large clinical trials, but China has already given vaccines under widespread emergency approval. It has started.

Meanwhile, Sinovac said he was confident in the safety of the vaccine.