Session 1D: Symposium: Pathogen outbreaks: Cause, spread and control

Chairperson: Saumitra Das

The Covid-19 Vaccine Landscape

SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. As of mid-June, approximately eight million people worldwide have been infected with close to half a million deaths. Currently, there are no known clinically approved drugs or vaccines against the virus. A number of candidate vaccine approaches are being evaluated. These include live attenuated or inactivated virus, DNA and mRNA vaccines, viral vectors expressing SARSCoV- 2 genes, and recombinant proteins or protein fragments. The latter are largely derived from the Spike surface protein of the virus that binds to the primary cellular receptor, Ace2. Currently there are about ten candidate vaccines already in clinical trials and several more poised to enter soon, with wholly indigenous efforts conspicuous by their absence from this list. Despite these multiple efforts, finding, producing and distributing a safe, cheap and efficacious vaccine to protect those most in need, worldwide, remains a formidable challenge.