COVID-19 vaccination campaigns gain momentum around the world
At least 73 human vaccines against the deadly coronavirus are in progress lately around the world, according to the COVID-19 vaccine tracker conducted by a team of epidemiologists and fitness experts from McGill University in Canada. Six drugs have overcome obstacles for public use in at least one country, while others have been in use for months without it. Read on to stay informed.
The vaccine produced through the American biotechnology company Moderna was approved for public use in the U. S. U. S. in December. Approval in the EU appears imminent, and European regulators plan to review the vaccine’s prestige on Jan. 6.
Moderna said it would produce the “vast majority” of its vaccine in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the company is based. It plans to produce a minimum of six hundred million doses this year, with the goal of generating up to one billion doses by 2021. .
The European Union has ordered 80 million doses of vaccine with the option to purchase another 80 million, while the United States has received two hundred million doses with the option to buy another three hundred million. The United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland and South Korea have also reserved doses. Canada, which has also approved the drug, has set aside 40 million doses.
The vaccine developed by the Swedish-British drugmaker in partnership with the University of Oxford has been approved for use in the UK, India and Argentina. They hope to produce about 3 billion doses of their drug to use in 2021, the Oxford director said. Jenner Institute, Adrian Hill, said in November.
The production of a global vaccine required the status quo of “regional origin chains consisting of more than 20 origin partners in more than 15 countries,” AstraZeneca’s senior vice president of global biological operations, Per Alfredsson, said in a video on the company’s website.
The first vaccine in Europe will come from Germany and Belgium, Ian McCubbin, head of production at the UK vaccine working group, told reporters in December. The doses will also be produced in India through the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine. maker.
The first coronavirus vaccine licensed for use in the EU, the drug produced through German biotech company BioNTech and U. S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, has also been approved for use in the U. S. The US, the UK, Saudi Arabia and at least 19 other countries.
The drug is produced at BioNtech and Pfizer facilities in Germany and Belgium, as well as in other countries, Pfizer said in a statement.
As a component of its vaccination strategy, the EU has concluded agreements with six producers. But so far, the BioNTech vaccine is the only one approved in the bloc. In response, the Mainz-based company said it intended to start production “much earlier than planned” at a new production facility in Marburg, Germany. Aiming to open in February, BioNTech said the new site is expected to produce 250 million more doses in this year’s first component, for a total production capacity of 750 million doses consistent with the year.
Together, Pfizer and BioNtech plan to produce up to 1. 3 billion doses for global use in 2021, Pfizer said in a press release. The EU has reserved three hundred million doses and the United States two hundred million.
In August, many fitness experts were shocked when Russia became the first country to approve a vaccine, months ahead of other countries. Since then, the Sputnik V vaccine has been approved for use in Belarus, Argentina and Guinea. Scientists in Russia have questioned the resolution. approve the vaccine ahead of phase 3 trials that typically last months and involve thousands of people,
Developed through the Gamaleya Institute of Public Research and the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, the production of the vaccine is financed through the Russian Sovereign Wealth Fund (RDIF). According to RDIF, the vaccine will be manufactured through its partner corporations in India, China, Brazil, South Korea and other countries. More than 50 countries have ordered more than 1. 2 billion doses of the vaccine, RDIF said on a Sputnik V news website.
Chinese regulators last week gave “conditional” approval for a vaccine developed through the Beijing-owned unit of Sinopharm, or China’s National Pharmaceutical Group. The vaccine is still in the late stages of clinical trials.
While China has lagged behind other countries in officially approving COVID-19 vaccines, millions more people, largely members of key teams adding health care, the food sector and network staff, in China have already been vaccinated as part of an emergency program. Now, the country is rushing to get millions more ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in February, in which millions of people travel through China. A time when the vaccine candidate evolved through a Sinopharm unit in Wuhan, also in advanced-stage clinical trials, is also already in use.
The UAE Beijing vaccine in December has already gained 3 million doses, according to China National Biotec Group, a subsidiary of Sinopharm. Bahrain also has the vaccine and Pakistan has said it will buy 1. 2 million doses, Reuters news firm reported.
Sinopharm’s annual production capacity is expected to reach one billion doses by the end of 2021, according to the state-backed China Daily.
Like Sinopharm’s vaccines, the vaccine produced through Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company Sinovac is also still in the complex phase and is already in use among the public.
A newly built production plant in Beijing is capable of generating three hundred million doses a year, Sinovac Chairman and CEO Yin Weidong told Chinese state media CGTN.
Doses have already been received from Singapore, Turkey, Brazil, Chile and Indonesia, where doses of vaccines have already arrived as the Southeast Asian country prepares for a mass vaccination campaign.
Developed through India’s Bharat Biotech International, the Covaxin vaccine was approved in India on January 3 along with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the vaccine a “game-changer,” fitness experts expressed dismay that proper trials or peer reviews have been conducted. Bharat Biotech chairman Krishna Ella told reporters that the emergency authorization was perfectly valid in cases and that there were already 20 million doses available.
India is one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic: some 150,000 more people in India have died from the virus.
The European Medicines Agency has given its authorization for the use of vaccines contrary to the omicron variant of COVID-19 to Moderna and BioNTech-Pfizer.
Moderna claims that its pharmaceutical competition has used the mRNA generation it had developed years before the pandemic. The lawsuit was filed in U. S. District Court. U. S. Department of Homeland Security in Massachusetts and the Düsseldorf Regional Court.
Vaccines redesigned by Moderna and BioNTech-Pfizer in components target the newly dominant BA. 4/BA. 5 omicron subvariants. The bites are part of a fall vaccination crusade that could begin within a few days.