About a hundred projects in development for a vaccine against the coronavirus

There are about a hundred projects for the development of a vaccine against Covid-19, ten of which are in the phase of clinical trials, according to data from the London School of Hygiene and Rural Medicine.

That distinguished British school recorded 120 projects for the development of a vaccine against the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, of which 110 are in the pre-clinical phase.

Eight projects have reached the "phase one" stage of human clinical trials. Among them, one Chinese project, led by CanSino, a company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, is in an even more advanced stage, with "phase one" and "phase two" clinical trials.

The main goal of "phase one" trials is to test the safety and, to a lesser extent, the effectiveness of the medicinal product.

The "phase two" and then the "phase three" trial, which is being carried out on a larger scale, has the main objective of evaluating the effectiveness, before the possible obtaining of permission from the health authorities to enter the market.

Three more Chinese projects are in "phase one", one of which is led by Nasdaq-listed pharmaceutical giant Sinovac, as well as two led by the Shenzhen Institute of Medicine, according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The World Health Organization lists three Chinese projects in clinical trials as of April 23 in its list of vaccine projects. This refers to the trials of the companies CanSino and Sinovac, as well as a project led by the Institute for Biological Projects in Beijing and the Institute for Virology in Wuhan.

Elsewhere in the world, there is a British project led by Oxford University and a German one led by the BioNTech laboratory, both of which are in "phase one".

In the US, there are two projects for the development of vaccines that are in "phase one", one of which is led by the biotechnology company Moderna in partnership with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the other is led by the biotechnology company "Inovio Pharmaceuticals".

The development of an effective and safe vaccine is a key issue in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 200.000 people worldwide.

In the absence of a cure for severe forms of the disease, only mass-applied vaccines can make it possible to protect people from contracting the disease and to stop the transmission of the virus.

A big problem is the relative slowness in the development of vaccines, their production in large quantities and the initiation of mass vaccination campaigns.

The World Health Organization and large pharmaceutical laboratories often mention 12 to 18 months as the minimum term for all of this.

However, some experts estimate that it is possible to have a vaccine by the end of this year, 2020, according to Sara Gilbert, a British professor at Oxford University who is involved in trials with her biotechnology company Vaccitech, and Frederik Tangi, a vaccine specialist. of France's Institut Pasteur, which is working on three vaccine projects.