Coronavirus vaccine roundup: From imperial college human trials to treatment, here are all the fresh updates around COVID-19

Coronavirus pandemic has breached the 10 million infection mark and World Health Organisation says that the pandemic is spreading at a more alarming rate than previously thought of, with no cure or preventable vaccine available right now.

The health body has also said that even though vaccines are being developed at warp speed, getting a vaccine ready in the current timelines is not sure.

Out of 110+ research groups, more than three groups are proceeding onto phase III clinical trials, which is considered to be the most critical and important one. Some leading competitors in the race are Oxford-Astrazeneca, CanSino BioTech and Moderna Inc, who are planning to conduct large scale trials in different countries. Apart from this, Imperial College of London, another vaccine group has started dosing patients with their novel vaccine in phase I. It is expected that we should have a vaccine ready by December 2020, but a lot more research is pending before we reach that stage.

Doctors around the world are using experimental drugs and repurposing some to combat the side-effects of the viral infection. Here are some of the treatment strategies being used right now

A low-cost steroid drug, commonly used to treat inflammation, Dexamethason emerged as the biggest saviour for patients suffering from critical symptoms of COVID-19 after it was observed that the medicine was able to cut down mortality rates in patients put on ventilator support, as well as by 1/5th in those hospitalized with other acute symptoms. The research has been backed by experts from the University of Oxford, who even suggested using the drug in hospitals across the world. While more studies are underway, researchers are very sure about the drug's safety and working.

Favipiravir, which, in the medical community is known as T-705 or Avigan is a drug which has been in the past used to fight Influenza outbreak in Japan and other viral diseases. Early studies in China found that the COVID positive patients who were administered a dose of this medicine tested negative in a span of four days and 91% of the cases showed promising lung improvement in X-Ray studies.

Pharmaceutical giant, Genmark won the approval to supply the antiviral medicine in the form of Fabiflu for COVID-19 treatment in the country, which is seeing a surge in cases every day. The company has also claimed that the medicine can be extremely effecting in treating positive patients who suffer from co-morbidities, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. The firm has fixed its price at Rs 103 per tablet.

Remdesivir is another promising drug being used as an experimental drug to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak. Preliminary trials have shown that patients who were prescribed the direct-acting antiviral drug tend to recover faster than those who were given a placebo drug. However, since it again is an experimental drug, the results cannot be collated unless large scale studies are done.

With the use of Convalescent Plasma Therapy (CPT), doctors administer a COVID-positive patient with blood cells from a recovered patient. In fact, the therapy has been hailed to treat patients suffering from extreme and critical symptoms. Antibodies from a recovered person are transfused onto the body of a sick person, thereby "powering" their immunity which can help fight against the novel coronavirus. Delhi's health minister, Satyender Jain was also administered CPT after some of his symptoms worsened after he was hospitalized.

Patanjali Ayurved's Coronil, hailed by the makers as the first "100% cure" for COVID-19 ran into troubled waters after ICMR and Ministry of Ayush asked them to halt its promotion and surface studies of clinical trials first. Even as research regarding the same is still underway, the makers have assured that the ayurvedic formulation guarantees effective results, has a good recovery rate and trials have proven the same. Acharya Balkrishna also claimed that their potent drug, made out of Ayurvedic herbs such as Giloy and Ashwagandha were able to decrease the viral load in the body.

Interestingly, Coronil, and Swasari, part of the Coronavirus fighting kit were only approved as immunity boosters and not as a cure. There is no proven cure for the viral infection as of now.