Coronavirus, Oxford corona vaccine most advanced, says WHO; Sanofi accelerates trials

The World Health Organisation has identified the Covid-19 vaccine candidates developed by Oxford University-AstraZeneca and Moderna Inc as the front-runners

Even though there are more than 13 experimental vaccines in clinical trials among the 140 being developed to combat Covid-19, the World Health Organisation has identified the candidates developed by Oxford University-AstraZeneca and Moderna Inc as the front-runners.

“Certainly in terms of how advanced they are, the stage at which they are, they are I think probably the leading candidate,” Reuters quoted WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan as saying.

“We do know that Moderna’s vaccine is also going to go into phase three clinical trials, probably from the middle of July, and so that vaccine candidate is not far behind.

AstraZeneca certainly has a more global scope at the moment in terms of where they are doing and planning their vaccine trials,” Swaminathan said.

Oxford University-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine
AstraZeneca, which has already begun phase III human trials of its AZD1222 (formerly known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19) vaccine candidate, signed its tenth supply-and-manufacturing deal.

Brazil announced on Saturday it had signed a $127 million agreement to start producing locally the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Elcio Franco, Brazil’s No 2 public health official, said in a press conference that the country would initially produce 30 million doses of the vaccine — half by December and half by January