As the worldwide COVID-19 cases near the 2 million ceiling, on April 13, the World Health Organisation issued a statement declaring its collaboration with a group of experts with diverse backgrounds to speed up COVID-19 vaccines development.

"We are scientists, physicians, funders and manufacturers who have come together as part of an international collaboration, coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), to help speed the availability of a vaccine against COVID-19,” the statement reads in part.

Race towards a vaccine

Normally, for a vaccine to be licensed in order to be availed for public use, it undergoes different tests categorised as follows: Preclinical testing and clinical trials subdivided into 3 phases.

According to WHO, the preclinical test is carried out on animals in the laboratory, phase I in clinical trials carried out on small numbers of humans tests the safety, phase II involves larger numbers and assesses the vaccine’s ability to produce desirable effects (usually Immunogenicity) and its general safety whereas phase III is a pivotal study to gather sufficient data on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

While the above procedure takes 10 to 15 years to complete, the vaccines for COVID-19’s progress have taken an unrivalled speed as the pandemic is unlikely to be ousted only by containment measures.

For that, 70 vaccinations for the coronavirus are underway with three already being tested in human trials according to WHO.

So far, Hong Kong-CanSno biologics’ vaccine-nicknamed Ad5-nCoV- is the closest to completing clinical trials as its preclinical results showed the vaccine can induce a strong immune response in animal models with a strong safety profile.

The remaining two within the human trial phase are American pharamceuticals Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc and Moderna Inc which skipped the animal testing phase with hopes to speed up the overall process after receiving approval on March 16.

Regardless of how fast and furious the race towards the COVID-19 vaccine may be, the pharmaceutical industry hopes the world could get the first vaccine before next year.