CHEARS

Spreading at a record rate with every passing day, the coronavirus positive cases has surged close to 13.4 million globally and the death rate is getting closer to 6 lakhs. Scientists and medical experts are working round the clock to develop a cure. As the world has put a united effort to fight the pandemic, there are more than 155 vaccine candidates in various stages of clinical trials and 23 of these reached clinical trials. Among these potential vaccines 3 has reached phase 3 of clinical trial in which a large population of volunteers are dosed to know the safety and efficacy against the virus.

Positive news on initial trials of the University of Oxford's potential COVID-19 vaccine candidate that has been licensed to AstraZeneca could be announced today, ITV's political editor robert peterson said citing a source. The phase 3 trials of the vaccine has began last month in Brazil.

Oxford University's vaccine candidate AZD1222 has been developed using a weakened strain of a common cold virus, which is a non-replicating version and combining it with the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 , which is present on the surface of novel coronavirus. Scientists aim to trigger the body's immune response after the cells recognize the genetic material of the spike protein when the virus actually infects it. The vaccine candidate was developed within 3 months and the development of phase 1 trials are yet to be reported by the scientists.