Vaccine prospects: Global distribution of covid vaccines has begun

Moderna is a Massachusetts-based biotech company working with the NIH. Their vaccine injects snippets of mRNA to mimic COVID.  

Clinical trials in 30,000 people have shown the Moderna vaccine to be 94.1% effective in preventing COVID-19. The Moderna vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by the FDA, and it is currently being distributed throughout the country, primarily to healthcare workers.

Pfizer and BioNTech have worked on an mRNA vaccine to prevent COVID-19. Clinical trials in 44,000 people have shown the vaccine to be 95% effective in preventing COVID-19. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by the FDA, and it is currently being distributed throughout the country, primarily to healthcare workers.

The University of Oxford collaborated with AstraZeneca to make a viral vector vaccine, which safely delivers the coronavirus's surface protein using a common cold virus engineered so it cannot cause infection. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had a 62-90% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 depending on the dose used in clinical trials of 65,000 people. This vaccine has been approved for emergency use in the U.K. and India.

The Sinovac trial is a collaboration between the Chinese biopharmaceutical company and the Brazilian research center Butantan. The Sinovac vaccine uses inactivated coronaviruses to build immunity. The first two phases of the trial have successfully an immune response with few side effects and the vaccine is currently in Phase 3. The Sinovac vaccine is approved for emergency use among high-risk groups in China.

This trial is a collaboration between The Murdoch Children's Research Institute, the largest child health research institute in Australia, and the University of Melbourne. The trial is enrolling 10,000 healthcare workers in Australia using the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine to strengthen the immune system, but its efficacy is not yet fully known. 

The Sinopharm vaccine has been developed by China’s state-run pharmaceutical company in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products. Like Sinovac, this vaccine uses inactivated coronaviruses. The Sinopharm vaccine has a 79% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 from clinical trials of 50,000 people. This vaccine has been approved for emergency use in China, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.