Types of Covid Vaccines and How Soon Can You Get Inoculated

Types of Covid Vaccines and How Soon Can You Get Inoculated

Pharmaceutical companies around the world are rushing to manufacture and distribute a viable vaccine. There are five main approaches being taken to develop a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2/COVID19, with several biotechnology companies, academic organisations and pharmaceutical companies employing different technologies in the race to bring their vaccine candidate to clinical trials. The World Health Organization hopes that a vaccine will be available earliest by October 2021.  

1. Viral vector vaccine: 

  • Organisations working on vaccine: 
    Johnson & Johnson; Geovax Labs and BravoVax; University of Oxford and Advent Srl; Tonix Pharmaceuticals and Southern Research; Altimmune; Greffex; Vaxart; CanSino Biologics; Zydus Cadila; Institute Pasteur 
  • Estimated date of first human trials:  June 2020

2. DNA vaccine:

  • Organisations working on vaccine: 
    Inovio Pharmaceuticals with Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology; Applied DNA Sciences, Takis Biotech and Evvivax;  Zydus Cadila
  • Estimated date of first human trials:  April 2020

3. RNA vaccine:

  • Organisations working on vaccine:
    CureVac; Moderna and US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Stermirna Therapeutics, Tongji University and Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Imperial College London
  • Date of first human trials: March 2020

4. Live-attenuated vaccine: 

  • Organisations working on vaccine: 
    Codagenix with Serum Institute of India
  • Estimated date of first human trials:  By August 2020

5. Protein-based vaccine:

  • Organisations working on vaccine:
    Novavax; Clover Biopharmaceuticals with GSK; Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch, New York Blood Center and Fundan University, China; University of Saskatchewan, Canada; University of Queensland, Australia, and Dynavax; Vaxart; Generex; ExpreS2ion; Vaxil Bio; Sanofi Pasteur; iBio/CC-Pharming 
  • Estimated date of first human trials:  By June 2020

Immune response: 

  • It is not known how strong the immune response needs to be to protect against SARS-CoV-2; therefore, some of the vaccines being developed may not work;
  • Before candidates reach clinical trials, investigators must also ensure they induce protective immunity, not immunopathology, as was seen in early attempts to develop a SARS-CoV vaccine after it emerged in 2002.

References:

Sources: China CDC Weekly 2020;2(8):113-122; Department of Health and Social Care; JAMA 2020, doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.1585; JAMA 2020, doi:10.1001/jama.2020.2648; John Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering; Lancet 2012;12(9):687–695; World Health Organization

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