Abstract

In December 2019 the first cases of atypical pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 were reported in Wuhan, China. This new infection was called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted human-to-human via direct contact and via the air-respiratory droplets and/or aerosols. The clinical manifestations of COVID-19 could range from asymptomatic or mild non-specific symptoms to severe pneumonia with multiple organ failure and death. The virus spread rapidly to almost all the countries in the world within a few months, and on the 11th of March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, a dynamic increase in the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths has been recorded worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating and causing annex tensive impact on the functioning of health care and is also leading to an economic crisis in the world. Today, it is difficult to ultimately assess the long-term effects of the pandemic, although it is known that they will be experienced for decades. Therefore, the most important goal is to stop the pandemic and develop an effective vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. Using the ClinicalTrials.gov and World Health Organization databases, we shed light on the current worldwide clinical and pre-clinical trials in search for a COVID-19 vaccine.

References

• 1. Amanat F., Stadlbauer D., Strohmeier S., Nguyen T.H., ChromikovaV., McMahon M., Jiang K., Arunkumar G.A., Jurczyszak D.,Polanco J., Bermudez-Gonzalez M., Kleiner G., Aydillo T., Miorin L.,Fierer D., et al.: A serological assay to detect SARS-CoV-2 seroconversionin humans. Nat. Med., 2020; 26: 1033–1036
  Google Scholar
• 2. AZD1222 vaccine met primary efficacy endpoint in preventingCOVID-19. https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2020/azd1222hlr.html (13.01.2021) 3 Baharoon S., Memish Z.A.: MERS-CoV as an emerging respiratoryillness: A review of prevention methods. Travel. Med. Infect.Dis., 2019; 32: 101520
  Google Scholar
• 3. Baharoon S., Memish Z.A.: MERS-CoV as an emerging respiratory illness: A review of prevention methods. Travel. Med. Infect. Dis., 2019; 32: 101520
  Google Scholar
• 4. Booth C.M., Matukas L.M., Tomlinson G.A., Rachlis A.R., RoseD.B., Dwosh H.A., Walmsley S.L., Mazzulli T., Avendano M., DerkachP., Ephtimios I.E., Kitai I., Mederski B.D., Shadowitz S.B., Gold W.L.,et al.: Clinical features and short-term outcomes of 144 patientswith SARS in the greater Toronto area. JAMA, 2003; 289: 2801–2809
  Google Scholar
• 5. Calina D., Docea A.O., Petrakis D., Egorow A.M., IshmukhametovA.A., Gabibov A.G., Shtilman M.I., Kostoff R., Carvalho F.,Vinceti M., Spandidos D.A., Tsatsakis A.: Towards effective COVID- 19 vaccines: Updates, perspectives and challenges (review). Int.J. Mol. Med., 2020; 46: 3–16
  Google Scholar
• 6. Calina D., Sarkar C., Arsene A.L., Salehi B., Docea A.O., MondalM., Islam M.T., Zali A., Sharifi-Rad J.: Recent advances, approachesand challenges in targeting pathways for potential COVID-19 vaccinesdevelopment. Immunol. Res., 2020; 68: 315–324
  Google Scholar
• 7. Callow K.A., Parry H.F., Sergeant M., Tyrrell D.A.: The timecourse of the immune response to experimental coronavirus infectionof man. Epidemiol. Infect., 1990; 105: 435–446
  Google Scholar
• 8. Cao W.C., Liu W., Zhang P.H., Zhang F., Richardus J.H.: Disappearanceof antibodies to SARS-associated coronavirus after recovery.N. Engl. J. Med., 2007; 357: 1162–1163
  Google Scholar
• 9. ClinicalTrials.gov. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=Covid19&term=vaccine&cntry=&state=&city=&dist= (15.10.2020)
  Google Scholar
• 10. Corey L., Mascola J.R., Fauci A.S., Collins F.S.: A strategic approachto COVID-19 vaccine R&D. Science, 2020; 368: 948–950
  Google Scholar
• 11. Coronavirus. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html(15.10.2020)
  Google Scholar
• 12. DNA vaccines. https://www.who.int/teams/health-productand-policy-standards/standards-and-specifications/vaccinesquality/dna (10.11.2020)
  Google Scholar
• 13. Draft landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. WHO. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines (15.10.2020)
  Google Scholar
• 14. Du Toit A.: Outbreak of a novel coronavirus. Nat. Rev. Microbiol.,2020; 18: 123
  Google Scholar
• 15. EMA recommends COVID-19 vaccine Moderna for authorisationin the EU. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/ema-recommends-covid-19-vaccine-moderna-authorisation-eu (13.01.2021)
  Google Scholar
• 16. Explaining operation warp speed. https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/explaining-operation-warp-speed/index.html (13.01.2021)
  Google Scholar
• 17. Folegatti P.M., Ewer K.J., Aley P.K., Angus B., Becker S., Belij-Rammerstorfer S., Bellamy D., Bibi S., Bittaye M., Clutterbuck E.A.,Dold C., Faust S.N., Finn A., Flaxman A.L., Hallis B., et al.: Safetyand immunogenicity of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine againstSARS-CoV-2: A preliminary report of a phase 1/2, single-blind,randomised controlled trial. Lancet, 2020; 396: 467–478
  Google Scholar
• 18. Ge H., Wang X., Yuan X., Xiao G., Wang C., Deng T., Yuan Q., XiaoX.: The epidemiology and clinical information about COVID-19. Eur.J. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. Dis., 2020; 39: 1011–1019
  Google Scholar
• 19. Graham B.S.: Rapid COVID-19 vaccine development. Science,2020; 368: 945–946
  Google Scholar
• 20. Guarner J.: Three emerging coronaviruses in two decades.The story of SARS, MERS, and now COVID-19. Am. J. Clin. Pathol.,2020; 153: 420–421
  Google Scholar
• 21. Hasson S.S., Al-Busaidi J.K., Sallam T.A.: The past, current andfuture trends in DNA vaccine immunisations. Asian Pac. J. Trop.Biomed., 2015; 5: 344–353
  Google Scholar
• 22. Hsu L.Y., Lee C.C., Green J.A., Ang B., Paton N.I., Lee L., VillacianJ.S., Lim P.L., Earnest A., Leo Y.S.: Severe acute respiratorysyndrome (SARS) in Singapore: Clinical features of index patientand initial contacts. Emerg. Infect. Dis., 2003; 9: 713–717
  Google Scholar
• 23. Huang C., Wang Y., Li X., Ren L., Zhao J., Hu Y., Zhang L., FanG., Xu J., Gu X., Cheng Z., Yu T., Xia J., Wei Y., Wu W., et al.: Clinicalfeatures of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan,China. Lancet, 2020; 395: 497–506
  Google Scholar
• 24. Huang L., Rong Y., Pan Q., Yi K., Tang X., Zhang Q., Wang W.,Wu J., Wanga F.: SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research and development:conventional vaccines and biomimetic nanotechnology strategies.Asian J. Pharm. Sci., 2020; doi: 10.1016/j.ajps.2020.08.001
  Google Scholar
• 25. Hui D.S., Zumla A.: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS):Epidemiology and clinical features. Postgrad. Med. J., 2004; 80:373–381
  Google Scholar
• 26. Interim clinical considerations for use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccinescurrently authorized in the United States. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/clinical-considerations.html (13.01.2021)
  Google Scholar
• 27. Jackson L.A., Anderson E.J., Rouphael N.G., Roberts P.C.,Makhene M., Coler R.N., McCullough M.P., Chappell J.D., DenisonM.R., Stevens L.J., Pruijssers A.J., McDermott A., Flach B., Doria-RoseN.A., et al.: An mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 – preliminaryreport. N. Engl. J. Med., 2020; 383: 1920–1931
  Google Scholar
• 28. Jeyanathan M., Afkhami S., Smaill F., Miller M.S., Lichty B.D.,Xing Z.: Immunological considerations for COVID-19 vaccine strategies.Nat. Rev. Immunol., 2020; 20: 615–632
  Google Scholar
• 29. Ki M.: 2015 MERS outbreak in Korea: Hospital-to-hospitaltransmission. Epidemiol. Health, 2015; 37: e2015033
  Google Scholar
• 30. Lu R., Zhao X., Li J., Niu P., Yang B., Wu H., Wang W., SongH., Huang B., Zhu N., Bi Y., Ma X., Zhan F., Wang L., Hu T., et al.:Genomic characterization and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus:Implications for virus origins and receptor binding. Lancet,2020; 395: 565–574
  Google Scholar
• 31. Mao R., Qiu Y., He J.S., Tan J.Y., Li X.H., Liang J., Shen J., ZhuL.R., Chen Y., Iacucci M., Ng S.C., Ghosh S., Chen M.H.: Manifestationsand prognosis of gastrointestinal and liver involvement inpatients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Lancet Gastroenterol. Hepatol., 2020; 5: 667–678
  Google Scholar
• 32. Masters P.S.: The molecular biology of coronaviruses. Adv.Virus Res., 2006; 66: 193–292
  Google Scholar
• 33. McBride R., van Zyl M., Fielding B.C.: The coronavirus nucleocapsidis a multifunctional protein. Viruses, 2014; 6: 2991–3018
  Google Scholar
• 34. Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).https://www.who.int/emergencies/mers-cov/en/ (15.10.2020)
  Google Scholar
• 35. Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. https://www.fda.gov/emergencypreparedness-and-response/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/moderna-covid-19-vaccine (13.01.2021)
  Google Scholar
• 36. Mullard A.: COVID-19 vaccine development pipeline gears up.Lancet, 2020; 395: 1751–1752
  Google Scholar
• 37. Mullol J., Alobid I., Mariño-Sánchez F., Izquierdo-DomínguezA., Marin C., Klimek L., Wang D.Y., Liu Z.: The loss of smell and tastein the COVID-19 outbreak: A tale of many countries. Curr. AllergyAsthma Rep., 2020; 20: 61
  Google Scholar
• 38. Neuman B.W., Kiss G., Kunding A.H., Bhella D., Baksh M.F., ConnellyS., Droese B., Klaus J.P., Makino S., Sawicki S.G., Siddell S.G.,Stamou D.G., Wilson I.A., Kuhn P., Buchmeier M.J.: A structuralanalysis of M protein in coronavirus assembly and morphology. J.Struct. Biol., 2011; 174: 11–22
  Google Scholar
• 39. Padron-Regalado E.: Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2: Lessons fromother coronavirus strains. Infect. Dis. Ther., 2020; 9: 255–274
  Google Scholar
• 40. Pardi N., Hogan M.J., Porter F.W., Weissman D.: mRNA vaccines– a new era in vaccinology. Nat. Rev. Drug Discov., 2018; 17: 261–279
  Google Scholar
• 41. Peeples L.: News feature: Avoiding pitfalls in the pursuit ofa COVID-19 vaccine. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2020; 117: 8218–8221
  Google Scholar
• 42. Peiris J.S.: Coronaviruses. In: Medical microbiology, ed.:D. Greenwood, M. Barer, R. Slack, W. Irving. Churchill Livingstone,Edinburgh 2012, 587–593
  Google Scholar
• 43. Pfizer and BioNTech announce vaccine candidate againstCOVID-19 achieved success in first interim analysis from phase
  Google Scholar
• 44. Project Lightspeed. https://biontech.de/covid-19-portal/project-lightspeed (13.01.2021)
  Google Scholar
• 45. Romano M., Ruggiero A., Squeglia F., Maga G., Berisio R.:A structural view of SARS-CoV-2 RNA replication machinery: RNAsynthesis, proofreading and final capping. Cells, 2020; 9: 1267
  Google Scholar
• 46. Ruch T.R., Machamer C.E.: The hydrophobic domain of infectiousbronchitis virus E protein alters the host secretory pathwayand is important for release of infectious virus. J. Virol., 2011; 85:675–685
  Google Scholar
• 47. SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome). https://www.who.int/ith/diseases/sars/en/ (15.10.2020)
  Google Scholar
• 48. Satarker S., Nampoothiri M.: Structural proteins in severeacute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2. Arch. Med. Res., 2020;51: 482–491
  Google Scholar
• 49. Schoeman D., Fielding B.C.: Coronavirus envelope protein:Current knowledge. Virol. J., 2019; 16: 69
  Google Scholar
• 50. Sorbello M., El-Boghdadly K., Di Giacinto I., Cataldo R., EspositoC., Falcetta S., Merli G., Cortese G., Corso R.M., Bressan F.,Pintaudi S., Greif R., Donati A., Petrini F.: The Italian coronavirusdisease 2019 outbreak: Recommendations from clinical practice.Anaesthesia, 2020; 75: 724–732
  Google Scholar
• 51. Sternberg A., Naujokat C.: Structural features of coronavirusSARS-CoV-2 spike protein: Targets for vaccination. Life Sci., 2020;257: 118056
  Google Scholar
• 52. Su S., Wong G., Shi W., Liu J., Lai A.C., Zhou J., Liu W., Bi Y., GaoG.F.: Epidemiology, genetic recombination, and pathogenesis ofcoronaviruses. Trends Microbiol., 2016; 24: 490–502
  Google Scholar
• 53. Tao Y., Shi M., Chommanard C., Queen K., Zhang J., MarkotterW., Kuzmin I.V., Holmes E.C., Tong S.: Surveillance of bat coronavirusesin Kenya identifies relatives of human coronavirusesNL63 and 229E and their recombination history. J. Virol., 2017;91: e01953–16
  Google Scholar
• 54. Wang D., Hu B., Hu C., Zhu F., Liu X., Zhang J., Wang B., Xiang H.,Cheng Z., Xiong Y., Zhao Y., Li Y., Wang X., Peng Z.: Clinical characteristicsof 138 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirusinfectedpneumonia in Wuhan, China. JAMA, 2020; 323: 1061–1069
  Google Scholar
• 55. Zhou P., Yang X.L., Wang X.G., Hu B., Zhang L., Zhang W., Si H.R.,Zhu Y., Li B., Huang C.L., Chen H.D., Chen J., Luo Y., Guo H., JiangR.D., et al.: A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirusof probable bat origin. Nature, 2020; 579: 270–273
  Google Scholar

Full text