ExplainerCoronavirus vaccine race: where are we and how far?

Here’s an update on the quest for a magic bullet against Covid-19 that has already killed more than a million people worldwide

Firms backed by their governments in China, Russia and the US are racing to be the first across the finish line

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Recent cases in which recovered Covid-19 patients were infected a second time with a new strain also raise the question of how long vaccines might last. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:43pm, 17 Oct 2020Updated: 1:05pm, 25 Nov 2020

Dozens of companies, from biotech start-ups to Big Pharma, are racing to develop a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, because the world needs it and for the potential payday.

Here’s an update on the quest for a magic bullet against the coronavirus that has already killed more than a million people worldwide.

How many in the pipeline?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified 42 “candidate vaccines” at the stage of clinical trials, up from 11 in mid-June.

Ten of them are at the most advanced “phase 3” stage, in which a vaccine’s effectiveness is tested on a large scale, generally tens of thousands of people across several continents.

US biotech firm Moderna, a US-German collaboration between BioNTech and Pfizer, several state-run Chinese labs, and a European project led by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca are thought to be among the more promising. Russia has already registered two Covid-19 vaccines, even before clinical trials were completed.

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said on Friday it would apply for emergency authorisation in the US for its vaccine in late November if safety data pans out.