Coronavirus Vaccine: US Based Company Begins Human Trial In Australia

A US-based company, Novavax has announced to start a human trial for coronavirus vaccine in Australia with 131 volunteers.

(Image: AFP)

New Delhi: The global coronavirus count has surpassed 5.5 million and the United States of America remains the worst-hit country with more than 1.7 million cases. While the world is facing the peak of the pandemic, a US-based company will take a step ahead to find the cure for the virus. A US Biotechnology company, Novavax has announced to begin their human trial of a vaccine for coronavirus in Australia. They have announced that they could release a vaccine by the end of the year. Biotech company's research chief Dr. Gregory Glenn told the media that the first phase of the trial has commenced and 131 volunteers will be tested. These volunteers will be from the cities of Melbourne and Brisbane and the test will look for early signs of the vaccine’s effectiveness. “We are in parallel making doses, making vaccines in anticipation that we’ll be able to show it’s working and be able to start deploying it by the end of this year,” Glenn told a virtual press conference in Melbourne from Novavax’ headquarters in Maryland. Also Read| Coronavirus Update: India Registers Over 1.45 Lakh Cases And 4,167 Deaths, Recovery Rate at 41.6 The company has named the potential COVID-19 vaccine as ‘NVX-CoV2373’ that would enhance the response of the immune system and even stimulate greater levels of neutralizing antibodies. The pre-clinical testing of the potential vaccine has already demonstrated that it would be beneficial for humans as it is "highly immunogenic". Novavax has added another vaccine to the list which is called recombinant vaccine. In these vaccines Novavax has used genetic engineering to grow harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in giant vats of insect cells in a laboratory. Scientists have extracted and purified the protein and packaged it into virus-sized nanoparticles. The way we make a vaccine is we never touch the virus, Novavax told The Associated Press last month. But ultimately, it looks just like a virus to the immune system. Many experimental vaccines are in the early stages of testing or will begin testing across China, the US, Europe. Vaccines are being created with different technologies, and work in different ways, which gives a possibility of at least one to succeed. (With inputs from PTI) Also Watch, WHO suspends trials of hydroxychloroquine due to safety concerns