US to approve one more vaccine after Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine

After rolling out the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, US is now looking to approve a second coronavirus vaccine. With the United States battling another surge in Covid-19 cases and the nation seeing another 2,32,255 fresh coronavirus cases , the country decided to approve the Moderna vaccine as well.

US regulators are now weighing in whether to grant emergency use authorisation for Moderan vaccine. A panel of outside advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration encouraged the emergency use of Moderna vaccine.

Early data from the trials of the coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca show two full doses of the vaccine give better immune response than the previously tried one full dose and a half-dose booster.

Developers of the vaccine candidate have already published late-stage trial results showing higher efficacy when a half dose is followed by a full dose, compared to a two full-dose regime.

Meanwhile, AIIMS- Delhi is reportedly unable to find enough number of volunteers for the Phase 3 trials of Covaxin, a coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by Bharat Biotech and ICMR. AIIMS officials have observed people are unwilling to participate in the trials thinking a vaccine would be anyway be available soon.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi is one of the sites conducting the final phase of the trial of Covaxin and it needs around 1,500 volunteers.

“We wanted 1,500-2,000 participants but so far, we have been able to recruit only around 200 participants. People are unwilling to participate in the exercise thinking why take part in a trial when a vaccine would be available soon for everyone,” Dr Sanjay Rai, professor at AIIMS and also the principal investigator of the study, said.