Vaccines’ Candidates Against SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

Scientists, health organizations, and pharmaceutical companies are making a large global effort to develop vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the virus of COVID-19 since the outbreak began. Until now, we have more than 150 candidates. However, 19 vaccine candidates have entered clinical trials in phase 2 and 3 trials (31 July 2020). In this article we aimed to present the platforms for COVID-19 vaccine, the types of vaccines (live, attenuated, inactivated, DNA/RNA, proteins subunits, viral vector), the antigen selection, adjuvants, and we focused on the phase 2/3 trial vaccines at this point (Sinopharm, Coronavac, Moderna, Oxford, Biontech). We searched the data in the main database (PubMed/Medline, Elsevier Science Direct, Scopus, Isi Web of Science, Embase, Excerpta Medica, UptoDate, Lilacs, Novel Coronavirus Resource Directory from Elsevier), in the high-impact international scientific Journals (Scimago Journal and Country Rank - SJR - and Journal Citation Reports - JCR), such as The Lancet, Science, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, Physiological Reviews, Journal of the American Medical Association, Plos One, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and in the data from Center for Disease Control (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and World Health Organization (WHO). We prior selected meta-analysis, systematic reviews, article reviews, and original articles in this order. We reviewed 216 articles and used 106 from March to June 2020, using the terms coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, novel coronavirus, Wuhan coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome, 2019-nCoV, 2019 novel coronavirus, n-CoV-2, covid, n-SARS-2, COVID-19, corona virus, coronaviruses, vaccine, platform, antigen, subunit, live and attenuated vaccine, RNA vaccine, live vaccine, inactivated vaccine, types of vaccines, adjuvants, replication, viral vector, phase 1-3, trial, with the tools MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), AND, OR, and the characters [,“,; /., to ensure the best review topics. We concluded that although vaccines have shown safety in phase 1 and efficacy in phase 2 and the beginning of phase 3 is starting, the most renowned scientists believe that a vaccine will be available only in the middle of next year.