Life After Lockdown: Where do We Stand with Vaccine Development of COVID-19

The novel coronavirus has now claimed the lives of thousands of people across the world. Half of the world is isolating inside their homes, taking every possible precautionary measure to fight this virus. While taking measures such as social distancing, washing our hands, and staying in our houses are effective in controlling the spread of the virus, these aren’t definitive measures. We cannot continue to live in our houses for the rest of our lives. There has to be a sure-shot way of defeating the coronavirus.

Vaccines play a big role

This where vaccines and medicines come into the picture. For ages, vaccines have cured the most-deadly diseases such as dengue, influenza, and Tuberculosis (TB). They are an effective and long-term approach to kill any virus. It has been months since the novel coronavirus has emerged and scientists have started working on vaccines to destroy the virus. They have been developing vaccines to stop the spread of coronavirus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has a research database that claims that seven vaccines are being tried on humans. Human trials have started worldwide with an attempt to find a cure for COVID-19. India is one of the largest countries with a supply of affordable drugs and medicines. It is a producer of vaccines and drugs. Thus, India will play a big role in eradicating global coronavirus pandemic.

A big step in developing Vaccines

Germany has taken a step in developing a vaccine to cure the coronavirus as fast as possible. The CEO of Biontech said that the tests began at the end of April and they will have some concrete data by the end of June or the beginning of July.

China has been actively working on developing a vaccine. The coronavirus was first seen in Wuhan, China from where it has now reached almost every country in the world. China has approved three COVID-19 vaccine candidates for the second phase of clinical trials.

The UK is also trying to come up with a vaccine to control COVID-19. There is a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed at the University of Oxford. They have started human trials and two of the leading vaccines are being made in Oxford and Imperial. Britain has agreed to work with other countries and organizations such as Italy, and China to find a vaccine. The aim of these vaccines is to provoke an immune response against the coronavirus.

CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations ) is efficiently working on several vaccines to fight coronavirus. Developing a vaccine is a time-taking process. It can take years or even decades to create a vaccine. Researchers and scientists are hopeful that a vaccine could be available by the year 2021. Other doctors are claiming that a vaccine could be available in the next few months depending on the trials and results.

Footnote

As of now, there is no vaccine that can treat COVID-19. It is going to take several months for a vaccine to be made available. We are quite far from that and until then our only way to fight the virus is by taking precautionary and safety measures.