• Kenya is one of 92 countries that will be supported by donors to get the Covid-19 vaccine as early as possible.
• Three of the front-runners from Russia and China have been approved for limited use in those countries.
Image: STEPHEN ASTARIKO
At least 170 vaccine candidates are being developed to prevent Covid-19 infection, according to a list provided by the World Health Organization.
The list shows nine front-runners, which are in the phase 3 (final) of testing.
Three of these front-runners from Russia and China have been approved for limited use in those countries, although they have not completed trials.
Scientists say if early data from phase 3 trials are promising enough, a vaccine can be cleared for emergency use on high-risk groups like health workers across the world.
WHO said it has not endorsed any of the candidates on its list yet.
"Inclusion of any particular product or entity in any of these landscape documents does not constitute, and shall not be deemed or construed as, any approval or endorsement by WHO of such product or entity (or any of its businesses or activities)," it said.
According to Gavi, the Geneva-based alliance that buys vaccines for poor countries including Kenya, the high number of candidates being tested improves the chances of finding at least one that is safe, effective and able to be manufactured at the numbers the world needs.
"The question now is when?" Gavi said in a statement.
Gavi said on average only between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of vaccine candidates make it through the clinical trial process.
It can typically take 10 to 15 years to bring a vaccine to market; the fastest ever—the vaccine for mumps—took four years in the 1960s.
But now researchers are trying to do that in 12 months.
The front-runners in phase 3 are being developed by Moderna (US); Germany's BioNTech in collaboration with Pfizer, and Fosun Pharma of China; CanSino Biologics (China); Gamaleya Research Institute (Russia); University of Oxford and AstraZeneca (UK); Sinovac Biotech (China); Wuhan Institute of Biological Products (China); Sinopharm (China); and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (Australia).
On Tuesday, US administration of Donald Trump asked states to get ready to distribute a potential Covid-19 vaccine by November 1 -two days before the presidential election.
Vaccines go through several stages to check their safety and whether they trigger an immune response in a small group of healthy humans.
The second phase widens the testing pool to include groups of people who may have the disease or be more likely to contract it, to gauge the vaccine’s effectiveness.
The third and final phase expands the pool up to thousands to make sure the vaccine is safe and effective among a wider array of people, because immune responses can vary by age, ethnicity, or by underlying health conditions.
The vaccine then goes to regulatory agencies for approval — which can be a lengthy process itself.
Kenya is is part of 92 countries that will be supported by donors to get the Covid-19 vaccines as early as possible even if they cannot afford.
The initiative, led by Gavi and the WHO, is called the Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (Covax Facility).