Coronavirus vaccine update: Serum Institute to deliver vaccine by April 2021 and other updates you need to do today

While the search for a clinically approved vaccine continues to rage on in and around the world, the CEO of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla has said that the Oxford coronavirus vaccine should be available for the general public by April 2021. Many other companies working towards developing a vaccine have shown great progress.

Here's an update on the vaccines being developed around the world.

Serum Institute of India, which will be producing and marketing Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine candidate as Covishield in India, has announced that the Oxford coronavirus vaccine will be ready and available for healthcare workers and elderly people by February 2021, while the general public will have their hands on it by April 2021. The vaccine will be priced at a maximum of Rs. 1000 for two important doses.

According to Adar Poonawalla, the Chief of India's Serum InstituteSerum, children would have to wait a little longer till the safety data is out, but the good news is that Covid-19 is not so bad and serious for them.

While talking about the efficacy of the vaccine, Adar Poonawalla said that the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine works very well even in elderly people. "It has induced a good T-cell response, which is an indicator for your long-term immunity and antibody response but then again, time will only tell if these vaccines are going to protect you in the long term. Nobody can answer that for any of the vaccines today," Poonawalla said.

Covaxin is an indigeneous vaccine candidate being developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Only last month, Bharat Biotech had successfully completed their Phase I and Phase II trials of Covaxine and had been permitted to initiate Phase III trials. Today, the third phase trials are to begin in Haryana. An individual named Vij had offered to become the "first volunteer" for Phase-III clinical trial of the vaccine on 18th November.

On Wednesday, the U.S. pharma giant Pfizer and its German biotech partner report 95% efficacy for their vaccine candidate. 170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, wherein 162 were observed in the placebo group and 8 in the vaccine group. The vaccine's efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%.

That being said, Pfizer and BioNTech believe that they have enough data to apply for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration for the same.

On 16th November, Moderna announced that a preliminary analysis of the trial depicted a 94.5% efficacy. However, Stephane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna Inc. says that more investment and funds are needed to ensure a faster development of the vaccine.