The WorldHealth Organisation Director General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus has said that anumber of anti-coronavirus vaccine candidates across the world are now inphase-3 of clinical trials and that he is hoping that we will soon have anumber of effective vaccines the deadly novel coronavirus which has infectedover 18 million people worldwide.

“A number ofvaccines are now in phase-3 clinical trials and we all hope to have a number ofeffective vaccines that can help prevent people from infection. However,there’s no silver bullet at the moment & there might never be,” Dr Tedrossaid.

He furtheradded that the number of coronavirus cases has increased 5 fold and the numberof deaths has tripled in the last 3 months.

 “Number of cases globally has increased morethan 5-fold to 17.5 million & the number of deaths has more than tripled to680,000 since WHO's emergency committee on COVID19 last met 3 months ago,” headded.

Initial trialresults of several vaccine candidates have showed positive results. In UK, theCOVID-19 vaccine jointly manufactured by Oxford University and AstraZeneca isin the final stages of clinical trials and could be available for the generalpublic by late this year of early next year.

The Russiansseem to be one step further ahead. Reports coming out of Russia suggest thatthe vaccine created at the Gamaleya institute in Moscow has completed humantrials and could be registered as early as August 10-12.

In India,human trials of Bharat Biotech manufactured vaccine — COVAXIN — have begun andvolunteers are now being administered the under trial vaccine.