Nations around the world have closed their borders and ordered a strict lockdown in order to avoid further pressure on the already overwhelmed medical care system. With more than 4.1 million cases globally and close to 283,876 fatalities, the COVID-19 graph continues to rise.
At the same time, scientists and researchers across the globe are racing against the time to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. As of now, almost 100 research groups are working round the clock to develop a potential vaccine for COVID-19.
It is important to note that a vaccine fit for humans usually takes years to develop as it goes through a series of human trials to test its safety and efficiency. The World Health Organization is tracking the potential vaccines for COVID-19 in the clinical evaluation
The University of Oxford has developed a vaccine candidate ‘ChAdOx1 nCoV-19’ in under three months. The vaccine candidate uses a weakened strain of common cold virus (adenovirus) and is combined with the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus causing COVID-19).
This will enable the body to identify the spike protein of the novel coronavirus. The vaccine candidate is now in a clinical trial phase-1 and healthy volunteers have already been injected to check its safety and efficiency.
