The Hunt for a Vaccine

As the world eagerly waits, immense pressure amounts onto researchers to develop a vaccine to fight COVID-19.

I. Exploratory Stage

This stage involves basic laboratory research. Its identified similarity to SARS and MERS has also helped the research for a vaccine.

II. Pre-clinical Stage

At this stage, research is carried out on animals - investigations for qualitatively asserting the functionality of potential vaccines.

III. Clinical Development

A. Phase One:

Small-scale trials to assess whether the vaccine is safe for humans. • India itself has about 30 separate vaccines under development, including the plasma treatment. • Australia’s University of Queensland along with pharmaceutical giant Seqirus are at this stage.

B. Phase Two:

Phase II clinical trials are larger and look mainly to assess the effectiveness of the vaccine against artificial infections and clinical diseases.

Two Chinese universities, Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and Chinese Academy of Science, are working with pharmaceutical companies at this stage, along with the Indian company Bharat Biotech.

C. Phase Three:

Vaccines in this stage are studied on a large scale on hundreds of subjects for enhanced evaluation of the vaccine.

University of Oxford’s vaccine, being developed in partnership with pharmaceutical major AstraZeneca, are already in phase-III human trials. Moderna and NIAID, two American biotech companies are rapidly advancing, and may soon reach phase 4.

D. Phase Four:

The final phase IV, also called post-marketing surveillance, is the practice of monitoring the safety of a pharmaceutical drug after it has been released.

German biotech firm BioNTech and US drugmaker Pfizer reported that their experimental Covid-19 vaccine was safe and induced an immune response in patients. Novavax, an American vaccine development company, announced encouraging results of two preliminary studies. One study produced a high level of antibodies against the virus while the another study found that the vaccine strongly protected monkeys from virus. India’s national drug regulator (CDSCO) has given its approval to a proposal to carry out phase-II and phase-III clinical trials of the Oxford University vaccine in India.