Published 12:40 IST, May 17th 2020
WHO says eight vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are in clinical trial
The World Health Organisation(WHO) has reportedly said that a total of eight candidates were in the stage of a clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reportedly said that a total of eight candidates were in the stage of a clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine. In addition to that, the geneva based organisation also added that another 110 were in various stages of development. This comes as the lethal respiratory illness has infected 4,636,173 people across the world.
As countries around the world scramble to contain the spread of COVID-19, pharmaceutical brands in countries including France, US, UK, China are racing to develop a vaccine. According to reports, countries like the US and China have also announced a date for tentative vaccines to be released.
Meanwhile, tobacco manufacturer, British American Tobacco has claimed to have developed a potential COVID-19 vaccine and that the drug is ready for human trials. As per reports, the company has been conducting pre-clinical trials and claims the potential COVID-19 vaccine has shown to produce a positive immune response. In April, the company had announced that its biotech subsidiary, Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP), was developing a potential vaccine for COVID-19.
'Vaccine by March 2021'
This comes as French pharmaceutical brand Sanofi is also expecting to release a vaccine soon. On May 16, Chinese health official Zhang Wenhong reportedly said that a successful vaccine against the novel coronavirus could be administered to humans as early as March 20121. Earlier, US President Donald Trump expressed his confidence in announcing that America would have a vaccine by the end of the year. Trump formally announced "Operation Warp Speed" to develop the COVID-19 vaccine as his administration mounted an unprecedented effort that involves the country’s military to get a vaccine for the deadly disease before the end of the year.
“It is called Operation Warp Speed that means big, and it means fast a massive scientific industrial and logistical endeavour, unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project. You really could say that nobody has seen anything like we are doing, whether its ventilators or testing nobody has seen anything like we are doing now within our country since the second world war incredible,” he said at a White House briefing.
Updated 12:40 IST, May 17th 2020