Numerous pharmaceutical companies have made predictions about coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines they are producing and most of them have turned out to be not true. After Covid-19 disease broke out last year and was termed a pandemic by the World Health Organisation in March, pharma companies from around the world joined the race to be the first to bring out a vaccine.
Health officials too, have made forward-looking statements on the vaccine, but they have been less definitive that those made by pharma companies.
Also Read: India’s daily Covid-19 count falls further, active cases remain below 6 lakh
According to CNN, American physicist Dr Francis Collins, director of National Institutes of Health, told mediapersons that while he remains “cautiously optimistic” that the United States could have a Covid-19 vaccine authorised by the end of the year, there was a possibility that “it might take longer”.
Top US infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci had on Thursday based his assumption that initial doses of effective and safe Covid-19 vaccine could be available by December-end on current projections from pharma giants Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc.
Pfizer had for weeks said it would know by October whether the vaccine it was producing was effective or not, but on Tuesday, according to news agency AFP, CEO Albert Bourla said the company still had not reached key benchmarks in assessing vaccine efficacy. “We could supply some 40 million doses in the US in 2020 if clinical testing proceeds as expected,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Pfizer had for weeks said it would know by October whether the vaccine it was producing was effective or not, but on Tuesday, according to news agency AFP, CEO Albert Bourla said the company still had not reached key benchmarks in assessing vaccine efficacy. “We could supply some 40 million doses in the US in 2020 if clinical testing proceeds as expected,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Also Read: England to enter into new month-long lockdown as UK virus cases pass 1 million
In another such example, Oxford researcher Dr Adrian Hill told CNN that the vaccine being developed by his university and British firm AstraZeneca would be out by September. ”My guess is July would be good. August more likely. Might be September,” he said. ”We’re aiming for September but hoping to finish before that,” he said. Phase 3 trials of the vaccine are currently underway.
Meanwhile, Moderna says it is on track to report early data from a late-stage trial of its Covid-19 vaccine in November. The pharma company is developing a vaccine called mRNA and says it expects to produce 20 million doses by the end of next year 2021.
Covid-19 cases have crossed the 46 million-mark worldwide, according to the real-time statistics provider website worldometer.