Vaccines
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(Ella 2021b). Covaxin has also been reported to induce Th1-biased antibody responses with an elevated IgG2a/IgG1 ratio and increased levels of SARSCoV-2-specific IFN-γ+ CD4+ T lymphocyte response (Ganneru 2021). On 3 January, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approved the emergency use of Covaxin, making it India’s first vaccine against the pandemic, even though Phase III safety and efficacy clinical trials had not been completed. At that time, 22,500 of the 25,800 participants in a Phase III trial had been vaccinated (CTRI/2020/11/028976). On 21 April, Bharat Biotech announced that the second interim analysis of the Phase III study demonstrated a 78% vaccine efficacy in mild, moderate, and severe COVID-19 disease and a 70% efficacy against asymptomatic COVID-19 infection (Bharat 20210421). Preliminary results suggest that Covaxin could be effective against B.1.1.7 (Sapkal 2021) and only slightly less effective against B.1.617 (Yadav 2021). These data need to be confirmed. Bharat has yet to publish detailed results of their Phase III trial. As of 2 May, the vaccine has been approved in 14 countries.
Other vaccines For information about other vaccines, refer to the excellent New York Times collection curated by Carl Zimmer, Jonathan Corum and Sui-Lee Wee: 1.
The Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker (Carl Zimmer, Jonathan Corum and Sui-Lee Wee) – Excellent overview of all vaccines in development, always up-to-date.
2.
How Nine Covid-19 Vaccines Work (Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer) – Almost 100 vaccines are in human trials. Find out how 9 of them work.
Coming vaccines The Novavax vaccine History The Novavax vaccine ‘NVX-CoV2373’ is a recombinant “nanoparticle” vaccine (rSARS-CoV-2; sometimes also called a ‘protein9 subunit vaccine’) composed of trimeric full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoproteins and Matrix-M1 adjuLicensed protein-based vaccines include the hepatitis B vaccine licensed in 1986, a flu vaccine approved in 2013 and the human papillomavirus vaccine for the prevention of of cervical cancer. 9
COVID Reference ENG 006.9
