There Is Hope, Covid-19 Vaccine May Be Out By End Of 2020: WHO Chief

The World Health Organization WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has raised hopes that a Covid-19 vaccine may be available by the end of 2020.

(Representative Image/ Getty)

New Delhi: Since the pandemic began earlier this year, researchers across the world are in the race to develop a vaccine against the deadly infection. While few of the vaccines have reached the final stages of testing, there is none that is globally approved against Covid- 19. Most vaccine makers have targeted the end of this year or early 2021 as the timeline for an effective vaccine. Now the  World Health Organization  WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also raised hope for a vaccine within this year. During a two-day meeting of its Executive Board on the pandemic, he said that the vaccine may be ready by the end of 2020. "We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine. There is hope." Nine experimental vaccines are in the pipeline of the WHO-led COVAX global vaccine facility that aims to distribute 2 billion doses by the end of 2021. At present the vaccine that has gone the farthest in terms of testing is the vaccine candidate under trial by the University of Oxford scientists in collaboration with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca,  According to a report in 'The Times', it could be given the required clearances by Christmas in December. The newspaper quoted UK government sources involved in the making and distribution of vaccines as saying that a full vaccine roll-out programme for adults could take six months or less after approval. Meanwhile, Russia remains the only country that has approved and rolled out a vaccine against Covid-19. Sputnik V' has been developed by the Gamalei National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, and the Russian Defence Ministry. Russia has also inked a deal with India's Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories to supply about 100 million doses of its Sputnik-V COVID-19 vaccine for trial and distribution in the country. At present, the total global coronavirus cases have reached 35,681,852 and there has been a total 1,047,731 fatalities due to the infection.