Two coronavirus vaccine candidates enter human trials, 60 in pre-clinical stage: WHO
Two candidate vaccines for COVID-19 have entered the first phase of human clinical trials and another 60 candidate vaccines are in pre-clinical studies, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed.
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The vaccine candidate jointly developed by CanSino Biological Inc and Beijing Institute of Biotechnology uses the non-replicating viral vector as the platform, same as the non-corona candidates like Ebola, to develop a vaccine with a ‘Adenovirus Type 5’ candidate, a draft landscape of COVID-19 vaccine candidates brought out today.
Sources say adenoviruses are common viruses that cause pneumonia and can deliver potential antigens to stimulate the production of antibodies that work against the disease.
However, the other candidate, which has entered the first phase of human trials is from the US-based biotech firm Moderna. The medical firm joined hands with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to develop this potential COVID-19 vaccine. This lipid nanoparticle (LNP) encapsulated mRNA candidate vaccine uses an RNA platform with multiple vaccine candidates.
As per the researchers, in terms of this kind of candidate vaccines, the virus’s genetic information is decoded from the DNA to make proteins.
The messenger RNA or mRNA acts as an intermediary between the genetic information in DNA and the amino acid sequence of proteins, which gives cells orders to generate proteins to fight against the viruses. But here the fact is such vaccines have not yet been approved to use on human.
It should be noted that as China looking for success in developing Coronavirus vaccine, the country said that it wants to carry out additional vaccine trials in other countries which are devastated by Coronavirus pandemic if the ongoing trial in Wuhan proves it is safe and effective.
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