The race is accelerating between the major countries from Russia to the United States to develop a vaccine for the emerging corona virus, so are we facing a "vaccine war" and a feverish race, "especially after the American questioning of the Russian vaccine announced by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday?
This feverish race to develop a vaccine for the Coronavirus resembles a spy novel, as the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada accused the Russian intelligence services of being behind hacker attacks to steal research on vaccines. In the United States, the Chinese were charged for similar reasons. Both Moscow and Beijing denied the accusations.
In this report, we learn about the most prominent parties who are currently working to develop a vaccine for our Corona, and what the nature of the vaccines they develop
Eight months after the emergence of the Corona virus in China, no test vaccine has so far proven its effectiveness against the emerging corona virus "SARS Cove 2" that causes "Covid-19" disease during clinical trials, however, at least 5.7 have been purchased. Billions of doses already in the world of the new Russian vaccine, according to Agence France-Presse.
And finding a vaccine has become more essential than ever before, while infections are renewed in many countries, which heralds a second wave of the epidemic, after the spread of the disease had shown signs of slowing down.
Around the world, vaccine development has been accelerated in unprecedented ways. Countries and large corporations have begun to raise money internationally.
This allows companies to start commercial manufacturing of the vaccine at the same time that they are developing it, usually in two separate phases.
How many experimental vaccines in the world?
In its latest illustration on July 31, the World Health Organization counted 26 candidate vaccines in the world that are being evaluated during clinical trials in humans, compared to 11 experimental vaccines in mid-June.
Most of these trials are still in the "first stage" which is mainly aimed at assessing the safety of the product, or the "second stage" when the issue of efficacy has already been explored.
While there are only five vaccines, among them only in the more advanced "third stage", when the effectiveness is measured on thousands of volunteers: this applies to the experimental vaccines developed by the German companies Biontech and the American Pfizer, the American Moderna laboratories, the Chinese laboratories of Sinopharm and the Chinese Sinovac and the University of Oxford in cooperation with the British AstraZeneca.
Other experimental vaccines are being tested on a large scale in other countries. On Tuesday, Indonesia began testing another vaccine, on 1,600 volunteers, who are already in the third phase.
The Russian vaccine, developed by the Nikolai Gamalia Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, in cooperation with the Russian Ministry of Defense, is listed in the first stage of the WHO database.
However, the Russian sovereign wealth fund, which is involved in its development, confirms the start of the third phase of clinical trials, and the Russian medical authorities say that teachers and medical staff have started receiving the vaccine from this August, before it is put up for circulation on January 1, 2021.
What techniques are used?
Some teams are working on conventional vaccines using the "dead" virus, and these vaccines are the "inactivated" class of vaccines.
There are also so-called "subunit" vaccines that depend on proteins (viral antigens) that trigger an immune response without containing viral DNA.
There are other vaccines known as "virus vector" vaccines, which are more innovative as they use a benign virus as a vector that is transformed and adapted to fight "Covid-19 ″". This is the technique chosen by the Russians, as well as the University of Oxford, and it uses adenoviruses from chimpanzees, a very common viral family.
Finally, other projects rely on vaccines that contain DNA or Messenger RNA, which are experimental products that use bits of modified genetic material.
What are the results?
The Russian Ministry of Health confirms that its vaccine allows "the formation of long-term immunity", with the ability to continue the immune response for a period of "two years", but the problem is that the data on which these allegations are based have not been published.
In general, only preliminary results of the ongoing trials, ie the first and second stages, and the latest of the vaccine that the University of Oxford and the Chinese company Cansino are working on, have been published on July 20, and showed that patients tolerate it well and that there is a "strong immune response".
The most prominent parties to the battle of vaccines
America
The United States government is betting on many experimental vaccines and has invested billions of dollars in various programs to obtain 300 million vaccine doses.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump announced a contract worth 1.5 billion dollars with the American company Moderna for 100 million doses of the experimental vaccine that it developed, which is the sixth such contract since May.
"We have reached an agreement with Moderna to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of their potential coronavirus vaccine," Trump said.
"The federal government will have these doses of the vaccine, and we buy them," he added.
It is noteworthy that the American biotechnology company Moderna is in the third phase of trials for its possible vaccine.
Trump added, explaining that the US government is also entering into a partnership with "Johnson & Johnson" and several other American companies to support the production of their vaccines on a large scale.
Argentina-Mexico-Britain
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said Wednesday that Argentina and Mexico will participate in the production of millions of doses of a vaccine for the Corona virus, which was developed by the University of Oxford in Britain with the giant pharmaceutical company, "AstraZeneca" for Latin America.
Fernandez added that his country and Mexico will be responsible for producing the vaccine developed by the prestigious British University and the Swedish-British Medicines Group in Latin America, once they obtain regulatory approval.
He said that AstraZeneca signed an agreement to produce 150 to 250 million doses for all Latin American countries except Brazil, and that will be available in the first half of 2021.
Tests involving more than a thousand people have proven that the vaccine is safe and produces immunity, and Britain has already reserved 100,000 doses of the vaccine, which is currently undergoing the third phase of trials.
Russia
Last Tuesday, without Moscow disclosing detailed studies of the results of its clinical trials that allow confirmation of the results of the vaccine, President Vladimir Putin announced that his country had registered the world's first vaccine against Corona.
The head of the Russian sovereign fund Kirill Dmitriev announced that about 20 countries around the world had requested one billion doses of the "Sputnik V" vaccine against the Corona virus, in advance, which was produced and developed locally.
While Moscow did not reveal the identity of the 20 countries, the Philippines announced today, Thursday, that it will join the final phase of clinical trials of the Russian Corona virus vaccine, starting in October.
And the agency "Bloomberg" news agency quoted presidential spokesman Harry Roque that a panel of Filipino experts will review the results of Russia's initial conclusions regarding the vaccine before the start of large-scale trials on humans.
He said Russia will fund the third phase of clinical trials in the Philippines.
Russia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Brazilian state of Paraná yesterday, Wednesday, to cooperate in developing a vaccine for the emerging corona virus, according to Brazilian media.
The governments of Russia and Parana are now working together to test and produce the "Sputnik V" vaccine, while the transfer of vaccine development technology is being negotiated, and a working group will be formed to allow Moscow to share the results of the first and second phase trials of the vaccine with the state of Parana and with the Brazilian government.
Jorge Calado, president of the Technology Institute "Tecpar" in Curitiba, said that the third phase may be tried in Paraná to test the vaccine on a large number of people.
Germany
The Paul Ehrlich Institute, which is responsible in Germany for issuing vaccination permits, announced its optimism that a vaccine against Corona would be reached at the end of this year.
Last Sunday, August 9, Klaus Siachotek, head of the institute, said that the first permits will be issued at the end of the year or early next year, provided that the third stage of testing data that confirms whether the vaccine actually protects against infection is successful.
Earlier last week, the head of the German institute told ZDF, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, that he was very optimistic and that good news would be announced soon.
India
India is developing a vaccine called Covaxin through Bharat Biotech India in cooperation with the National Institute of Virology of the Indian Council of Medical Research. .
The Cofaxine vaccine is an "inactivated vaccine", meaning that it is made using particles of corona viruses that have been killed, making them incapable of infection or reproduction.