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Coronavirus vaccine
ChinaScience

Explainer | How the coronavirus vaccines compare and who can get them

  • The race to carry out the biggest inoculation programme in history has begun, with six products approved and more to follow
  • What are some of the differences between the various vaccines and how many doses have been ordered around the world?

Reading Time:5 minutes
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A health worker receives a Covid-19 vaccine at a community health centre in Nanjing in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. Photo: Xinhua
Holly Chik
Millions of people in dozens of countries have started to receive Covid-19 vaccines as part of the effort to fight the novel coronavirus that has infected nearly 100 million people worldwide. It is the fastest vaccine development in history and one of the greatest logistical challenges the world has faced.

Here is a snapshot of the situation so far, from vaccine development to distribution, and some answers to frequently asked questions about how they work.

How many vaccines?

National health agencies are reviewing and granting emergency use authorisations to a number of vaccines developed by different pharmaceutical companies and mass inoculation programmes are rolling out in many countries.

Six have been approved so far, using different technologies and with varying side effects. They have been developed by: US firm Moderna; US-German partnership Pfizer-BioNTech; Britain’s Oxford-AstraZeneca partnership; Sinopharm and Sinovac in China; and Russia’s Gamaleya.

The World Health Organization recommends emergency approval should only be granted after phase 3 – final stage – clinical trials, which involve thousands of people, to determine safety and effectiveness.

According to WHO guidelines, health authorities should continue to monitor for any side effects after mass inoculation starts.

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