Question: What vaccine candidates are being tested for Covid-19?

Title: Vaccines for COVID-19: The current state of play Content: There is a strong consensus globally that a COVID-19 vaccine is likely the most effective approach to sustainably controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. An unprecedented research effort and global coordination has resulted in a rapid development of vaccine candidates and initiation of trials. Here, we review vaccine types, and progress with 10 vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - currently undergoing early phase human trials. We also consider the many challenges of developing and deploying a new vaccine on a global scale, and recommend caution with respect to our expectations of the timeline that may be ahead.

Title: Vaccines for COVID-19: the current state of play Content: There is a strong consensus globally that a COVID-19 vaccine is likely the most effective approach to sustainably controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. An unprecedented research effort and global coordination has resulted in a rapid development of vaccine candidates and initiation of trials. Here, we review vaccine types, and progress with 10 vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 - currently undergoing early phase human trials. We also consider the many challenges of developing and deploying a new vaccine on a global scale, and recommend caution with respect to our expectations of the timeline that may be ahead.

Title: COVID-19: A Review of Emerging Preventative Vaccines and Treatment Strategies Content: COVID-19, which was first detected in the Hubei province of China, has become a global phenomenon. The effects and devastation on both health and economy have been global. At present, there is a substantial amount of research being done to discover suitable treatment modalities. Efforts have been made on the development of potential efficacious vaccines. The development of a vaccine can be complex, expensive as well as time-consuming. Currently, various ongoing clinical trials are in progress that are investigating either pharmacologic therapies or vaccines against this virus. We, in this brief review have tried to address the process and current development efforts of vaccine in progress.

Title: The potential danger of suboptimal antibody responses in COVID-19 Content: There is a desperate need for effective therapies and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 to mitigate the growing economic crisis that has ensued from societal lockdown. Vaccines are being developed at an unprecedented speed and are already in clinical trials, without preclinical testing for safety and efficacy. Yet, safety evaluation of candidate vaccines must not be overlooked.

Title: How Close are We to a COVID-19 Vaccine? Content: This review provides an overview regarding the main aspects of candidate COVID-19 vaccines and pathophysiology of disease The types of biotechnological candidate vaccines to be developed against COVID-19, their degree of protection and the pathophysiological mechanism of the disease were analyzed in this review article The literature data on which cruxes for the development of biotechnological candidate vaccines to be wended are based was researched Data that could give reference to various biotechnological candidate vaccines were reviewed For this purpose, up-to-date literature data was utilized The ways to succeed in the development of a vaccine requiring a technological infrastructure are to synthesize the data obtained from long term trials and to put them into practice subsequently The vaccines to be developed by means of recombinant DNA technology will be a source of inspiration to people for further studies After a rapid process of vaccine development, the use of COVID-19 vaccine can be mainstreamed among people to prevent the disease As a result of these practices, the evaluation of which vaccine will be more safe, reliable and effective will be performed after phase studies

Title: COVID-19 vaccines move toward clinic Content: Drug developers are moving their experimental vaccines for COVID-19 into clinical trials at a frenetic pace Trials for five such vaccines have begun in China Two are being tested in the US, with a third slated to start this month And trials of two more are due to begin in the UK and Australia in the coming weeks “Everything from basic science to clinical science is progressing at a pace faster than ever before—and very appropriately, given the grave nature of the current global crisis,” says Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center The World Health Organization says at least 70 COVID-19 vaccines are in development, while scientists at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) have counted 115 Moderna was the first to begin clinical testing of a COVID-19 vaccine, just 66 days after downloading the genome of SARS-CoV-2,

Title: Fighting COVID-19: A quick review of diagnoses, therapies, and vaccines Content: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has infected more than 4.9 million individuals and resulted in over 300,000 deaths globally. The rapid spread of the virus and the precipitously increasing numbers of cases necessitate the urgent development of accurate diagnostic methods, effective treatments, and vaccines. Here, we review the progress of developing diagnostic methods, therapies, and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 with a focus on current clinical trials and their challenges. For diagnosis, nucleic acid amplification tests remain the mainstay diagnostics for laboratory confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection, while serological antibody tests are used to aid contact tracing, epidemiological, and vaccine evaluation studies. Viral isolation is not recommended for routine diagnostic procedures due to safety concerns. Currently, no single effective drug or specific vaccine is available against SARS-CoV-2. Some candidate drugs targeting different levels and stages of human responses against COVID-19 such as cell membrane fusion, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, viral protease inhibitor, interleukin 6 blocker, and convalescent plasma may improve the clinical outcomes of critical COVID-19 patients. Other supportive care measures for critical patients are still necessary. Advances in genetic sequencing and other technological developments have sped up the establishment of a variety of vaccine platforms. Accordingly, numerous vaccines are under development. Vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2 are mainly based upon the viral spike protein due to its vital role in viral infectivity, and most of these candidates have recently moved into clinical trials. Before the efficacy of such vaccines in humans is demonstrated, strong international coordination and collaboration among studies, pharmaceutical companies, regulators, and governments are needed to limit further damage due the emerging SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Title: Fighting COVID-19: a quick review of diagnoses, therapies, and vaccines Content: The COVID-19 pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has infected more than 4.9 million individuals and resulted in over 300,000 deaths globally. The rapid spread of the virus and the precipitously increasing numbers of cases necessitate the urgent development of accurate diagnostic methods, effective treatments, and vaccines. Here, we review the progress of developing diagnostic methods, therapies, and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 with a focus on current clinical trials and their challenges. For diagnosis, nucleic acid amplification tests remain the mainstay diagnostics for laboratory confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection, while serological antibody tests are used to aid contact tracing, epidemiological, and vaccine evaluation studies. Viral isolation is not recommended for routine diagnostic procedures due to safety concerns. Currently, no single effective drug or specific vaccine is available against SARS-CoV-2. Some candidate drugs targeting different levels and stages of human responses against COVID-19 such as cell membrane fusion, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, viral protease inhibitor, interleukin 6 blocker, and convalescent plasma may improve the clinical outcomes of critical COVID-19 patients. Other supportive care measures for critical patients are still necessary. Advances in genetic sequencing and other technological developments have sped up the establishment of a variety of vaccine platforms. Accordingly, numerous vaccines are under development. Vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2 are mainly based upon the viral spike protein due to its vital role in viral infectivity, and most of these candidates have recently moved into clinical trials. Before the efficacy of such vaccines in humans is demonstrated, strong international coordination and collaboration among studies, pharmaceutical companies, regulators, and governments are needed to limit further damage due the emerging SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Title: Covid-19 treatment: The race against time Content: The new outbreak of the novel coronavirus infection emerged in Wuhan-China in late 2019, by the end of Mar 2020, it has spread in more than 178 countries and territories. There is no vaccine or antiviral treatment for COVID-19. Currently, there are several drugs and vaccines being tested for their potential activity against the disease. In this review, we briefly discuss some of the investigational drugs and vaccines being tested against COVID-19 as well as their potential drawbacks.

Title: Will the coronavirus help mRNA and DNA vaccines prove their worth? Content: Biotech companies, pharma firms, universities, and government agencies are all rushing to start clinical trials of newly created gene-based vaccines for COVID-19 Developer;Technology;Phase I clinical trial Moderna and National Institutes of Health;mRNA vaccine;Began in March 2020 CanSino Biologics;Adenoviral vector vaccine;Began in March 2020 BioNTech, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical, and Pfizer;mRNA vaccine;April 2020 Inovio Pharmaceuticals and Wistar Institute;DNA vaccine;April 2020 University of Oxford;Adenoviral vector vaccine;April 2020 CureVac;mRNA vaccine;By early summer Imperial College London;mRNA vaccine;Early summer Arcturus Therapeutics and Duke-NUS Medical School;mRNA vaccine;Second half of 2020 Johnson & Johnson and Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority;Adenoviral vector vaccine;By September Altimmune;Adenoviral vector vaccine;Q3 2020 Translate Bio and Sanofi Pasteur;mRNA vaccine;By end of 2020 eTheRNA Immunotherapies;mRNA vaccine;2021 Karolinska Institute;DNA vaccine;2021 University of Pennsylvania and Duke Human Vaccine Institute;mRNA vaccine;Unknown

Title: SARS-CoV-2 SPIKE PROTEIN: an optimal immunological target for vaccines Content: COVID-19 has rapidly spread all over the world, progressing into a pandemic. This situation has urgently impelled many companies and public research institutes to concentrate their efforts on research for effective therapeutics. Here, we outline the strategies and targets currently adopted in developing a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. Based on previous evidence and experience with SARS and MERS, the primary focus has been the Spike protein, considered as the ideal target for COVID-19 immunotherapies.

Title: The vaccine journey for COVID-19: a comprehensive systematic review of current clinical trials in humans Content: INTRODUCTION: Since December 2019, there has been an outbreak of a novel beta-coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in Wuhan, China. On March the 11th the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, with over 118,000 cases in more than 110 countries around the world. In response to the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emergency, clinical trial research assessing the efficacy and safety of experimental vaccines to prevent COVID-19 are emerging at an unprecedented rate. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize the preliminary experiences and ongoing clinical trials of the major candidates and challenges of the vaccine strategies in humans. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: After a priori protocol registration with PROSPERO (181483), a systematic research of the published literature was conducted on 24 April 2020 using Medline (via PubMed), Embase (via Ovid), and WHO databases. Moreover, to explore the more recent literature we also searched the preprint server medRxiv. Finally, we scrutinized the Cochrane COVID-19 study register and the COVID-19 section of ClinicalTrials.gov database for identifying relevant ongoing clinical trials. Thereafter we selected the articles according to the PRISMA guidelines. Animal or in-vitro experimental studies were excluded. Moreover editorials, commentaries, abstracts, reviews, book chapters, and articles not in English were not included. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Our search identified 1359 published papers, 478 pre-print articles and 367 ongoing clinical trials. Finally, only ten ongoing clinical trials met the inclusion criteria. Specifically, seven developed vaccines for the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 and three clinical trials assessed the protective role of BCG vaccine against COVID-19. The first group included phase I/II trials with different types of molecules (DNA or mRNA vaccine, bacterial plasmid or viral vectors), the latter were phase III/IV trials designed on the basis of a heterologous lymphocyte activation by the BCG vaccine. CONCLUSIONS: This new disease is pushing the scientific community to develop swiftly a safe and effective vaccine. Notwithstanding the limitations of our analysis, given by the absence of available results, we try to provide a comprehensive view of the ongoing clinical trials in humans. Our analysis reveals a worldwide effort of both scientists and enterprises to achieve one of the most challenging goals of our century.

Title: Intention to participate in a COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial and to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in France during the pandemic Content: Background: The world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Development of vaccine is challenging. Aim: To determine the proportion of people who intend to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in France or to participate in a vaccine clinical trial. Methods: We conducted an anonymous on-line survey from the 26th of March to the 20th of April 2020. Primary endpoints were the intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if a vaccine was available or participate in a vaccine clinical trial. Results: Three thousand two hundred and fifty nine individuals answered the survey; women accounted for 67.4 % of the responders, 670 (20.6 %) were under 30 years of age, 1,502 (46.1 %) between 30-49 years, 803 (24.6 %) between 50-64 years, 271 (8.3%) between 65-80 years, 13 (0.4%) over 80 years of age. According to their statements, 2.512 participants (77.6%, 95 % CI 76.2-79 %) will certainly or probably agree to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Older age, male gender, fear about COVID-19, being healthcare workers and individual perceived risk were associated with COVID-19 vaccine acceptance Vaccine hesitancy was associated with a decrease in COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. One thousand and five hundred and fifty responders (47.6 % 95 % CI 45.9-49.3 %) will certainly or probably agree to participate in a COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial. Conclusions and Relevance: Nearly 75 % and 48 % of the survey responders were likely to accept vaccination or participation in a clinical trial against COVID-19. Vaccine hesitancy will be the major barrier to COVID-19 vaccine uptake.

Title: COVID-19 vaccines: Knowing the unknown Content: Vaccine development against SARS-CoV-2 has drawn attention around the globe due to the exploding pandemic. Although COVID-19 is caused by a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, previous research on other coronavirus vaccines, such as FIPV, SARS, and MERS, has provided valuable information for the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccine. However, important knowledge gaps remain - some are specific to SARS-CoV-2, others are fundamental to immunology and vaccinology. Here, we discuss areas that need to be addressed for COVID-19 vaccine development, and what can be learned from examples of vaccine development in the past. Since the beginning of the outbreak, the research progress on COVID-19 has been remarkable. We are therefore optimistic about the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccine.

Title: Public Willingness to Get Vaccinated Against COVID-19: How AI-Developed Vaccines Can Affect Acceptance Content: Vaccines for COVID-19 are currently under clinical trials. These vaccines are crucial for eradicating the novel coronavirus. Despite the potential, there exist conspiracies related to vaccines online, which can lead to vaccination hesitancy and, thus, a longer-standing pandemic. We used a between-subjects study design (N=572 adults in the US and UK) to understand the public willingness towards vaccination against the novel coronavirus under various circumstances. Our survey findings suggest that people are more reluctant to vaccinate their children compared to themselves. Explicitly stating the high effectiveness of the vaccine against COVID-19 led to an increase in vaccine acceptance. Interestingly, our results do not indicate any meaningful variance due to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in developing vaccines, if these systems are described to be in use alongside human researchers. We discuss the public's expectation of local governments in assuring the safety and effectiveness of a future COVID-19 vaccine.

Title: Why Challenge Trials of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines Could Be Ethical Despite Risk of Severe Adverse Events Content: Human challenge trials to test the efficacy of vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus behind Covid-19, could save considerable time and many lives. But they may initially seem unethical because they expose healthy volunteers to a live virus that is killing many people and for which no cure exists. This article argues that this is not the correct test of their ethics. The correct test is comparative. And in the special circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic, human challenge trials meet the correct test better than standard efficacy testing would.

Title: Global efforts on vaccines for COVID-19: Since, sooner or later, we all will catch the coronavirus Content: COVID-19 is an emerging infectious disease that has turned into a pandemic. It spreads through droplet transmission of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. It is an RNA virus displaying a spike protein as the major surface protein with significant sequence similarity to SARS-CoV which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. The receptor binding domain of the spike protein interacts with the human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 and is considered as the antigenic determinant for stimulating an immune response. While multiple candidate vaccines are currently under different stages of development, there are no known therapeutic interventions at the moment. This review describes the key genetic features that are being considered for generating vaccine candidates by employing innovative technologies. It also highlights the global efforts being undertaken to deliver vaccines for COVID-19 through unprecedented international cooperation and future challenges post development.

Title: Global efforts on vaccines for COVID-19: Since, sooner or later, we all will catch the coronavirus. Content: COVID-19 is an emerging infectious disease that has turned into a pandemic. It spreads through droplet transmission of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. It is an RNA virus displaying a spike protein as the major surface protein with significant sequence similarity to SARS-CoV which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. The receptor binding domain of the spike protein interacts with the human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 and is considered as the antigenic determinant for stimulating an immune response. While multiple candidate vaccines are currently under different stages of development, there are no known therapeutic interventions at the moment. This review describes the key genetic features that are being considered for generating vaccine candidates by employing innovative technologies. It also highlights the global efforts being undertaken to deliver vaccines for COVID-19 through unprecedented international cooperation and future challenges post development.

Title: The vaccine journey for COVID-19: a comprehensive systematic review of current clinical trials in humans. Content: INTRODUCTION Since December 2019, there has been an outbreak of a novel beta-coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in Wuhan, China. On March the 11th the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, with over 118,000 cases in more than 110 countries around the world. In response to the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emergency, clinical trial research assessing the efficacy and safety of experimental vaccines to prevent COVID-19 are emerging at an unprecedented rate. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize the preliminary experiences and ongoing clinical trials of the major candidates and challenges of the vaccine strategies in humans. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION After a priori protocol registration with PROSPERO (181483), a systematic research of the published literature was conducted on 24 April 2020 using Medline (via PubMed), Embase (via Ovid), and WHO databases. Moreover, to explore the more recent literature we also searched the preprint server medRxiv. Finally, we scrutinized the Cochrane COVID-19 study register and the COVID-19 section of ClinicalTrials.gov database for identifying relevant ongoing clinical trials. Thereafter we selected the articles according to the PRISMA guidelines. Animal or in-vitro experimental studies were excluded. Moreover editorials, commentaries, abstracts, reviews, book chapters, and articles not in English were not included. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS Our search identified 1359 published papers, 478 pre-print articles and 367 ongoing clinical trials. Finally, only ten ongoing clinical trials met the inclusion criteria. Specifically, seven developed vaccines for the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 and three clinical trials assessed the protective role of BCG vaccine against COVID-19. The first group included phase I/II trials with different types of molecules (DNA or mRNA vaccine, bacterial plasmid or viral vectors), the latter were phase III/IV trials designed on the basis of a heterologous lymphocyte activation by the BCG vaccine. CONCLUSIONS This new disease is pushing the scientific community to develop swiftly a safe and effective vaccine. Notwithstanding the limitations of our analysis, given by the absence of available results, we try to provide a comprehensive view of the ongoing clinical trials in humans. Our analysis reveals a worldwide effort of both scientists and enterprises to achieve one of the most challenging goals of our century.

Title: SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Vaccine Development and Production: An Ethical Way Forward Content: The world awaits a SARS-CoV-2 virus (i.e., COVID-19 disease) vaccine to keep the populace healthy, fully reopen their economies, and return their social and healthcare systems to "normal." Vaccine safety and efficacy requires meticulous testing and oversight; this paper describes how despite grandiose public statements, the current vaccine development, testing, and production methods may prove to be ethically dubious, medically dangerous, and socially volatile. The basic moral concern is the potential danger to the health of human test subjects and, eventually, many vaccine recipients. This is further complicated by economic and political pressures to reduce government oversight on rushed vaccine testing and production, nationalistic distribution goals, and failure to plan for the widespread immunization needed to produce global herd immunity. As this paper asserts, the public must be better informed to assess promises about the novel vaccines being produced and to tolerate delays and uncertainty.

Title: Progress and Prospects on Vaccine Development against SARS-CoV-2 Content: In December 2019, the outbreak of pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has led to a serious pandemic in China and other countries worldwide. So far, more than 460,000 confirmed cases were diagnosed in nearly 190 countries, causing globally over 20,000 deaths. Currently, the epidemic is still spreading and there is no effective means to prevent the infection. Vaccines are proved to be the most effective and economical means to prevent and control infectious diseases. Several countries, companies, and institutions announced their programs and progress on vaccine development against the virus. While most of the vaccines are under design and preparation, there are some that have entered efficacy evaluation in animals and initial clinical trials. This review mainly focused on the progress and our prospects on field of vaccine development against SARS-CoV-2.

Title: COVID-19 Vaccine: Vaccinate the Young to Protect the Old? Content: When we have a vaccine against COVID-19, who should be vaccinated first? The question is relevant because, initially, vaccine availability will likely be limited. After healthcare and some other essential workers, it might seem the most obvious candidates are the elderly and other groups that are more vulnerable to the virus. However, we argue that this is not necessarily the case. Protecting the most vulnerable might require prioritizing vaccinating children in order to maximize the benefits of indirect immunity for the elderly and the other vulnerable groups. Whether this will be the best strategy from a public health perspective will depend on characteristics of the vaccine and of the virus, which are currently unknown. Here, we assess this possibility from an ethical point of view, by drawing comparisons and analogies with the case of the flu vaccination and with other examples of health policies and practices. We conclude that there are strong ethical reasons to vaccinate the young to protect the old, provided that the risks imposed on children are reasonable, even if that implies using children as a means to protect the elderly and the vulnerable.

Title: SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Vaccine Development and Production: An Ethical Way Forward Content: The world awaits a SARS-CoV-2 virus (i.e., COVID-19 disease) vaccine to keep the populace healthy, fully reopen their economies, and return their social and healthcare systems to “normal.” Vaccine safety and efficacy requires meticulous testing and oversight; this paper describes how despite grandiose public statements, the current vaccine development, testing, and production methods may prove to be ethically dubious, medically dangerous, and socially volatile. The basic moral concern is the potential danger to the health of human test subjects and, eventually, many vaccine recipients. This is further complicated by economic and political pressures to reduce government oversight on rushed vaccine testing and production, nationalistic distribution goals, and failure to plan for the widespread immunization needed to produce global herd immunity. As this paper asserts, the public must be better informed to assess promises about the novel vaccines being produced and to tolerate delays and uncertainty.

Title: Natural History of COVID-19 and Current Knowledge on Treatment Therapeutic Options Content: Despite intense research there is currently no effective vaccine available against the new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in the later 2019 and responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. This infectious and communicable disease has become one of the major public health challenges in the world. The clinical management of COVID-19 has been limited to infection prevention and control measures associated with supportive care such as supplemental oxygen and mechanical ventilation. Meanwhile efforts to find an effective treatment to inhibit virus replication, mitigate the symptoms, increase survival and decrease mortality rate are ongoing. Several classes of drugs, many of them already in use for other diseases, are being evaluated based on the body of clinical knowledge obtained from infected patients regarding to the natural history and evolution of the infection. Herein we will provide an updated overview of the natural history and current knowledge on drugs and therapeutic agents being tested for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. These include different classes of drugs such as antiviral agents (chloroquine, ivermectin, nitazoxanide, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, remdesivir, tocilizumab), supporting agents (Vitamin C, Vitamin D, azithromycin, corticosteroids) and promising investigational vaccines. Considering the controversies and excessive number of compounds being tested and reported in the literature we hope that this review can provide useful and updated consolidated information on potential drugs used to prevent, control and treat COVID-19 patients worldwide.

Title: Comprehensive overview of COVID-19 clinical trials. Content: Here, we present an overview of the clinical trials that are currently being conducted or have concluded to date on COVID-19 globally. A comprehensive search was conducted to present 16 trial registries from around the world. Collectively, there are 1,528 trials reported for COVID-19 to date. Out of them, 50 studies included paediatric age group from day 0 to less than or equal to 18 years of age. A few 18 studies involve only females and 20 only males. There are 2 trials currently underway in Bangladesh, 4 in Pakistan and 13 in India. Overall, 940 trials are related to medicines and/or interventions. They include standard of care for any viral illness, antivirals, anti-inflammatory and immune altering medications. Two out of 10 vaccine trials are novel vaccines. It is knowledgeable and resourceful to reach out to the concerned sponsor if a physician thinks his patient can benefit from the trials in the region.

Title: Comprehensive overview of COVID-19 clinical trials Content: Here, we present an overview of the clinical trials that are currently being conducted or have concluded to date on COVID-19 globally. A comprehensive search was conducted to present 16 trial registries from around the world. Collectively, there are 1,528 trials reported for COVID-19 to date. Out of them, 50 studies included paediatric age group from day 0 to less than or equal to 18 years of age. A few 18 studies involve only females and 20 only males. There are 2 trials currently underway in Bangladesh, 4 in Pakistan and 13 in India. Overall, 940 trials are related to medicines and/or interventions. They include standard of care for any viral illness, antivirals, anti-inflammatory and immune altering medications. Two out of 10 vaccine trials are novel vaccines. It is knowledgeable and resourceful to reach out to the concerned sponsor if a physician thinks his patient can benefit from the trials in the region.

Title: Validation and performance of a quantitative IgG assay for the screening of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies Content: The current COVID-19 epidemic imposed an unpreceded challenge to the scientific community in terms of treatment, epidemiology, diagnosis, social interaction, fiscal policies and many other areas. The development of accurate and reliable diagnostic tools (high specificity and sensitivity) is crucial in the current period, the near future and in the long term. These assays should provide guidance to identify immune presumptive protected persons, potential plasma, and/or B cell donors and vaccine development among others. Also, such assays will be contributory in supporting prospective and retrospective studies to identify the prevalence and incidence of COVID-19 and to characterize the dynamics of the immune response. As of today, only thirteen serological assays have received the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA). In this work we describe the development and validation of a quantitative IgG enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) using the recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein S1 domain, containing the receptor-binding domain (RBD), showing 98% sensitivity and 98.9% specificity. The assay showed to be useful to test for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies in plasma samples from COVID-19-recovered subjects as potential donors for plasmapheresis. This assay is currently under review by the Federal Drug Administration for an Emergency Use Authorization request (Submission Number EUA201115).

Title: Vaccines and Drug Therapeutics to Lock Down Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Systematic Review of Clinical Trials Content: The ongoing novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been responsible for millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths. To date, there is no approved targeted treatment, and many investigational therapeutic agents and vaccine candidates are being considered for the treatment of COVID-19. To extract and summarize information on potential vaccines and therapeutic agents against COVID-19 at different stages of clinical trials from January to March 2020, we reviewed major clinical trial databases such as ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP), and other primary registries between January and March 15, 2020. Interventional studies at different phases under the COVID-19 pipeline were included. A total of 249 clinical trials were identified between January to March 15, 2020. After filtering observational studies (194 studies), a total of 56 interventional trials were considered. The majority of clinical trials have been conducted on chloroquine (n=10) and traditional Chinese medications (TCMs; n=10), followed by antivirals (n=8), anti-inflammatory/immunosuppressants (n=9), cellular therapies (n=4), combinations of different antivirals therapies (n=3), antibacterial (n=1), and other therapies (n=5). Five vaccines are under phase I, and there are a couple of phase III trials on the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine under investigation among healthcare workers. Many novel compounds and vaccines against COVID-19 are currently under investigation. Some candidates have been tested for other viral infections and are listed for clinical trials against the COVID-19 pipeline. Currently, there are no effective specific antivirals or drug combinations available for the treatment of COVID-19.

Title: Progress and Challenges in the Development of COVID-19 Vaccines and Current Understanding of SARS-CoV-2- Specific Immune Responses Content: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading globally, and the WHO has declared this outbreak a pandemic. Vaccines are an effective way to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, the immune response against SARS-CoV-2 infection needs to be understood for the development of an efficient and safe vaccine. Here, we review the current understanding of vaccine targets and the status of vaccine development for COVID-19. We also describe host immune responses to highly pathogenic human coronaviruses in terms of innate and adaptive immunities.

Title: Progress and Challenges in the Development of COVID-19 Vaccines and Current Understanding of SARS-CoV-2- Specific Immune Responses. Content: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading globally, and the WHO has declared this outbreak a pandemic. Vaccines are an effective way to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, the immune response against SARS-CoV-2 infection needs to be understood for the development of an efficient and safe vaccine. Here, we review the current understanding of vaccine targets and the status of vaccine development for COVID-19. We also describe host immune responses to highly pathogenic human coronaviruses in terms of innate and adaptive immunities.

Title: Emerging manufacturers engagements in the COVID -19 vaccine research, development and supply Content: The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 disease as a pandemic requiring a rapid response. Through online search, direct communication with network members and an internal survey, engagements of developing countries' vaccine manufacturers' network members in the research and development of COVID-19 vaccines and their capacities in the manufacturing, fill-finish and distribution of vaccines were assessed. Currently, 19 network members engaged in research and development of COVID-19 vaccines, using six principal technology platforms. In addition, an internal survey showed that the number of vaccines supplied collectively by 37 members, in 2018-19, was about 3.5 billion doses annually. Almost a third of network members having vaccines prequalified by the World Health Organization comply with international regulations and mechanisms to distribute vaccines across borders. The use of existing manufacturing, fill-finish and distribution capabilities can support an efficient roll-out of vaccines against COVID-19, while maintaining supply security of existing vaccines for on-going immunization programmes.

Title: Emerging Manufacturers engagements in the COVID -19 vaccine research, development and supply Content: The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 disease as a pandemic requiring a rapid response. Through online search, direct communication with network members and an internal survey, engagements of developing countries’ vaccine manufacturers’ network members in the research and development of COVID-19 vaccines and their capacities in the manufacturing, fill-finish and distribution of vaccines were assessed. Currently, 19 network members engaged in research and development of COVID-19 vaccines, using six principal technology platforms. In addition, an internal survey showed that the number of vaccines supplied collectively by 37 members, in 2018-19, was about 3.5 billion doses annually. Almost a third of network members having vaccines prequalified by the World Health Organization comply with international regulations and mechanisms to distribute vaccines across borders. The use of existing manufacturing, fill-finish and distribution capabilities can support an efficient roll-out of vaccines against COVID-19, while maintaining supply security of existing vaccines for on-going immunization programmes.

Title: Low-Cost and High-Throughput Testing of COVID-19 Viruses and Antibodies via Compressed Sensing: System Concepts and Computational Experiments Content: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an ongoing pandemic infectious disease outbreak that has significantly harmed and threatened the health and lives of millions or even billions of people. COVID-19 has also negatively impacted the social and economic activities of many countries significantly. With no approved vaccine available at this moment, extensive testing of COVID-19 viruses in people are essential for disease diagnosis, virus spread confinement, contact tracing, and determining right conditions for people to return to normal economic activities. Identifying people who have antibodies for COVID-19 can also help select persons who are suitable for undertaking certain essential activities or returning to workforce. However, the throughputs of current testing technologies for COVID-19 viruses and antibodies are often quite limited, which are not sufficient for dealing with COVID-19 viruses' anticipated fast oscillating waves of spread affecting a significant portion of the earth's population. In this paper, we propose to use compressed sensing (group testing can be seen as a special case of compressed sensing when it is applied to COVID-19 detection) to achieve high-throughput rapid testing of COVID-19 viruses and antibodies, which can potentially provide tens or even more folds of speedup compared with current testing technologies. The proposed compressed sensing system for high-throughput testing can utilize expander graph based compressed sensing matrices developed by us \cite{Weiyuexpander2007}.

Title: COVID‐19 vaccines: knowing the unknown Content: Vaccine development against SARS‐CoV‐2 has drawn attention around the globe due to the exploding pandemic. Although COVID‐19 is caused by a new coronavirus, SARS‐CoV‐2, previous research on other coronavirus vaccines, such as FIPV, SARS and MERS, has provided valuable information for the rapid development of COVID‐19 vaccine. However, important knowledge gaps remain – some are specific to SARS‐CoV‐2, others are fundamental to immunology and vaccinology. Here we discuss areas that need to be addressed for COVID‐19 vaccine development, and what can be learned from examples of vaccine development in the past. Since the beginning of the outbreak, the research progress on COVID‐19 has been remarkable. We are therefore optimistic about the rapid development of COVID‐19 vaccine. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Title: The SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Pipeline: an Overview Content: Purpose of Review: The goal of this review is to provide a timely overview on efforts to develop a vaccine for the 2019 novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Recent Findings: Previous research efforts to develop a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) vaccine in the years following the 2003 pandemic have opened the door for investigators to design vaccine concepts and approaches for the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 exhibit a high degree of genetic similarity and bind to the same host cell ACE2 receptor. Based on previous experience with SARS-CoV vaccines, it is expected that all COVID-19 vaccines will require careful safety evaluations for immunopotentiation that could lead to increased infectivity or eosinophilic infiltration. Besides this, a COVID-19 vaccine target product profile must address vaccinating at-risk human populations including frontline healthcare workers, individuals over the age of 60, and those with underlying and debilitating chronic conditions. Among the vaccine technologies under evaluation are whole virus vaccines, recombinant protein subunit vaccines, and nucleic acid vaccines. Summary: Each current vaccine strategy has distinct advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is paramount that multiple strategies be advanced quickly and then evaluated for safety and efficacy. Ultimately, the safety studies to minimize undesired immunopotentiation will become the most significant bottleneck in terms of time.

Title: The SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Pipeline: an Overview Content: PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The goal of this review is to provide a timely overview on efforts to develop a vaccine for the 2019 novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). RECENT FINDINGS: Previous research efforts to develop a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) vaccine in the years following the 2003 pandemic have opened the door for investigators to design vaccine concepts and approaches for the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 exhibit a high degree of genetic similarity and bind to the same host cell ACE2 receptor. Based on previous experience with SARS-CoV vaccines, it is expected that all COVID-19 vaccines will require careful safety evaluations for immunopotentiation that could lead to increased infectivity or eosinophilic infiltration. Besides this, a COVID-19 vaccine target product profile must address vaccinating at-risk human populations including frontline healthcare workers, individuals over the age of 60, and those with underlying and debilitating chronic conditions. Among the vaccine technologies under evaluation are whole virus vaccines, recombinant protein subunit vaccines, and nucleic acid vaccines. SUMMARY: Each current vaccine strategy has distinct advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is paramount that multiple strategies be advanced quickly and then evaluated for safety and efficacy. Ultimately, the safety studies to minimize undesired immunopotentiation will become the most significant bottleneck in terms of time.

Title: A Review of Potential Antiviral Drugs and Vaccines to Treat COVID-19 Content: Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is a challenge to the whole humanity COVID-19 was first reported in China and rigorous researches are going on for developing vaccine for the pandemic This review was prepared by following PRISMA guidelines and used the resources from the Web of Science and PubMed This research focuses on the niches of symptoms and vaccines for COVID-19 The research for vaccine involves research for new vaccine and drug repurposing Out of various drug repurposing options, Remdesivir, and Favipiravir, Chloroquine and Lopinavir/Ritonavir were found to be the popular ones for treating COVID-19 patients across the world Even though there are concerns regarding asymptotic patients, the most dominant symptoms of COVID-19 are fever and cough, followed by Dyspnoea and muscle ache This review concludes that the COVID-19 related research should focus on developing immunity vaccines, and repurposing of drugs Research on the problems of quarantine life, patient monitoring, and usage of information technology in facing COVID-19 will improve the quality of patient handling during the pandemic The research on the effectiveness of various models of lockdown and regulation of social life during lockdown periods, improving the safety of health care workers in the workplace will definitely help the governments in their fight against COVID-19

Title: Animal Model Prescreening: Pre-exposure to SARS-CoV-2 impacts responses in the NHP model Content: COVID-19 presents herculean challenges to research and scientific communities for producing diagnostic and treatment solutions. Any return to normalcy requires rapid development of countermeasures, with animal models serving as a critical tool in testing vaccines and therapeutics. Animal disease status and potential COVID-19 exposure prior to study execution may severely bias efficacy testing. We developed a toolbox of immunological and molecular tests to monitor countermeasure impact on disease outcome and evaluate pre-challenge COVID-19 status. Assay application showed critical necessity for animal pre-screening. Specifically, real-time PCR results documented pre-exposure of an African Green Monkey prior to SARS-CoV-2 challenge with sequence confirmation as a community-acquired exposure. Longitudinal monitoring of nasopharyngeal swabs and serum showed pre-exposure impacted both viral disease course and resulting immunological response. This study demonstrates utility in a comprehensive pre-screening strategy for animal models, which captured the first documented case of community-acquired, non-human primate infection. One Sentence Summary Pre-exposure to SARS-CoV-2 affects biomarker responses in animal models, highlighting a need for robust pre-screening protocols prior to medical countermeasure studies.

Title: On setting expectations for a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Content: The global coronavirus pandemic is unlike any other since 1918. A century of dramatic medical advances has produced a public expectation that the medical field will rapidly provide solutions to restore normalcy. In under 6 months, since SARS-CoV-2 was identified, the massive international effort to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine has generated more than 140 vaccines in different stages of development with 9 already recruiting into clinical trials posted on clinicaltrials.gov. The long-term strategy to handle COVID-19 will almost certainly rely on vaccines. But, what type of protection can we realistically expect to achieve from vaccines and when?

Title: COVID-19 vaccine development and the way forward Content: The whole globe is reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic now. With the scale and severity of infection, number of deaths and lack of any definite therapeutic armamentarium, the vaccine development has been accelerated at a never-before pace. A wide variety of vaccine technologies and platforms are being attempted. Out of the over 108 efforts, 100 are in preclinical and eight in Phase 1 or 2 trial stage. While the availability of newer technologies has facilitated development, there are several challenges on the way including limited understanding of the pathophysiology, targeting humoral or mucosal immunity, lack of suitable animal model, poor success of human severe acute respiratory syndrome/Middle East Respiratory Syndrome vaccines, limited efficacy of influenza vaccines, and immune exaggeration with animal coronavirus vaccines. With the current scenario with political, funding, research, and regulatory supports, if everything sails through smoothly, the successful vaccine is expected in 12-18 months. Modestly efficacious vaccine may be also a good achievement.

Title: COVID-19 vaccine development and the way forward. Content: The whole globe is reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic now. With the scale and severity of infection, number of deaths and lack of any definite therapeutic armamentarium, the vaccine development has been accelerated at a never-before pace. A wide variety of vaccine technologies and platforms are being attempted. Out of the over 108 efforts, 100 are in preclinical and eight in Phase 1 or 2 trial stage. While the availability of newer technologies has facilitated development, there are several challenges on the way including limited understanding of the pathophysiology, targeting humoral or mucosal immunity, lack of suitable animal model, poor success of human severe acute respiratory syndrome/Middle East Respiratory Syndrome vaccines, limited efficacy of influenza vaccines, and immune exaggeration with animal coronavirus vaccines. With the current scenario with political, funding, research, and regulatory supports, if everything sails through smoothly, the successful vaccine is expected in 12-18 months. Modestly efficacious vaccine may be also a good achievement.

Title: Why Challenge Trials of SARS‐CoV‐2 Vaccines Could Be Ethical Despite Risk of Severe Adverse Events Content: Human challenge trials to test the efficacy of vaccine candidates against SARS‐CoV‐2, the novel coronavirus behind Covid‐19, could save considerable time and many lives. But they may initially seem unethical because they expose healthy volunteers to a live virus that is killing many people and for which no cure exists. This article argues that this is not the correct test of their ethics. The correct test is comparative. And in the special circumstances of the Covid‐19 pandemic, human challenge trials meet the correct test better than standard efficacy testing would.

Title: Vaccines against Coronaviruses: The State of the Art Content: The emerging epidemic caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 represents the most important socio-health threat of the 21st century. The high contagiousness of the virus, the strong impact on the health system of the various countries and the absence to date of treatments able to improve the prognosis of the disease make the introduction of a vaccine indispensable, even though there are currently no approved human coronavirus vaccines. The aim of the study is to carry out a review of the medical literature concerning vaccine candidates for the main coronaviruses responsible for human epidemics, including recent advances in the development of a vaccine against COVID-19. This extensive review carried out on the vaccine candidates of the main epidemic coronaviruses of the past has shown that the studies in animal models suggest a high efficacy of potential vaccines in providing protection against viral challenges. Similar human studies have not yet been carried out, as the main trials are aimed at assessing mainly vaccine safety and immunogenicity. Whereas the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) epidemic ended almost two decades ago and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) epidemic is now better controlled, as it is less contagious due to the high lethality of the virus, the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic represents a problem that is certainly more compelling, which pushes us to accelerate the studies not only for the production of vaccines but also for innovative pharmacological treatments. SARS-CoV-2 vaccines might come too late to affect the first wave of this pandemic, but they might be useful if additional subsequent waves occur or in a post-pandemic perspective in which the virus continues to circulate as a seasonal virus.

Title: Vaccines against Coronaviruses: The State of the Art. Content: The emerging epidemic caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 represents the most important socio-health threat of the 21st century. The high contagiousness of the virus, the strong impact on the health system of the various countries and the absence to date of treatments able to improve the prognosis of the disease make the introduction of a vaccine indispensable, even though there are currently no approved human coronavirus vaccines. The aim of the study is to carry out a review of the medical literature concerning vaccine candidates for the main coronaviruses responsible for human epidemics, including recent advances in the development of a vaccine against COVID-19. This extensive review carried out on the vaccine candidates of the main epidemic coronaviruses of the past has shown that the studies in animal models suggest a high efficacy of potential vaccines in providing protection against viral challenges. Similar human studies have not yet been carried out, as the main trials are aimed at assessing mainly vaccine safety and immunogenicity. Whereas the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) epidemic ended almost two decades ago and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) epidemic is now better controlled, as it is less contagious due to the high lethality of the virus, the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic represents a problem that is certainly more compelling, which pushes us to accelerate the studies not only for the production of vaccines but also for innovative pharmacological treatments. SARS-CoV-2 vaccines might come too late to affect the first wave of this pandemic, but they might be useful if additional subsequent waves occur or in a post-pandemic perspective in which the virus continues to circulate as a seasonal virus.

Title: Current Status of Treatment Options, Clinical Trials, and Vaccine Development for SARS-CoV-2 Infection Content: The severe acute respiratory syndrome virus (SARS-CoV-2), a novel coronavirus first discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019 causes the Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19), which presents with a wide range of clinical symptoms from mild or moderate to severe and critical illnesses With the continuing transmission of the virus worldwide and the rapidly evolving situation globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic in March Currently, there is no proven specific treatment for this potentially deadly disease beyond supportive care However, a massive effort has been put globally into the investigation of medications and other interventional measures to fight COVID-19 Convalescent plasma therapy from recovered patients has recently drawn considerable interest Several alternative medical treatments, although evidence of their efficacy still lacking, have also gained popularity, especially in countries with such traditions such as India and China Rapid repurposing of drugs for COVID-19 has revealed a few promising candidate antiviral agents, but further research, especially high quality randomized controlled trials, will be needed to prove their efficacy and safety in the clinical use to treat COVID-19 Vaccine development has been the imperative task in the battle against SARS-CoV-2 While clinical trials have been launched for several candidate vaccines, research on COVID-19 vaccines is still at an early stage So far, optimized supportive care remains the best practice against COVID-19

Title: Generation of antibodies against COVID-19 virus for development of diagnostic tools Content: The COVID-19 China coronavirus started in Dec 2019 was challenged by the lack of accurate serological diagnostic tool for this deadly disease to quickly identify and isolate the infected patients. The generation of COVID-19-specific antibodies is essential for such tasks. Here we report that polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies were generated by immunizing animals with synthetic peptides corresponding to different areas of Nucleoprotein (N) of COVID-19. The specificities of the COVID-19 antibodies were assessed by Western Blot analysis against NPs from COVID-19, MERS and SARS. Antibodies were used for immunohistochemistry staining of the tissue sections from COVID-19 infected patient, as a potential diagnostic tool. A Sandwich ELISA kit was quickly assembled for quantitation of the virus/NP of COVID-19 concentrations in the vaccine preparations. Development of POCT is also aggressively undergoing.

Title: Operationalizing COVID-19 testing: Who, what, when, where, why, and how Content: The authors review the rationale behind and approaches to testing for COVID-19, the quality of currently available tests, the role of data analytics in strategizing testing, and using the electronic medical record and other programs designed to steward COVID-19 testing and follow-up of patients.

Title: Operationalizing COVID-19 testing: Who, what, when, where, why, and how. Content: The authors review the rationale behind and approaches to testing for COVID-19, the quality of currently available tests, the role of data analytics in strategizing testing, and using the electronic medical record and other programs designed to steward COVID-19 testing and follow-up of patients.

Title: Defining Protective Epitopes for COVID‐19 Vaccination Models Content: Recent papers in the Journal provide tangible avenues for COVID‐19 vaccine production as immunoreactive epitopes are brought to the forefront in these and many other emerging studies.(1,2) The development of a consistent predictable animal model of COVID‐19 infection is evidently also a welcome event for preliminary antiviral and vaccine assessments and surely brings us to another level of progression.(3) This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Title: Another Set of Coronavirus Vaccine Candidates Content: I surveyed the coronavirus vaccine landscape in this post, and then detailed some of the larger efforts in the field here (several updates have been added to that one since its initial posting) Now it’s time to look at several programs that aren’t in either of those, but still have plenty of serious science behind them For an example of a relatively new technology that’s now in use for human patients, there’s the VSV (vesicular stomatitis virus) platform, which was used to produce the Ebola vaccine now manufactured by Merck Stat has an excellent long-form article from earlier this year about how this came about, and it’s well worth a read, both for the history itself and as a look into the ups and downs of vaccine research in general The Yale team behind that one had developed a promising vaccine candidate for the SARS coronavirus during its epidemic, and they’re using those lessons in their current work If you look at that second link above on vaccine candidates, you will note that there are several using adenovirus vectors – this is conceptually the same sort of thing, but using a livestock virus (VSV) instead of human or primate-associated adenoviruses I don’t know if the Yale team has partnered with anyone yet, but I should also mention another connection of theirs, a spinoff company called CaroGen that has another engineered virus platform that is also being put to use against SARS-CoV-2 These projects are aiming at FDA approval for Phase I trials, but there’s no word yet on what such an application might go in

Title: An evaluation of COVID-19 serological assays informs future diagnostics and exposure assessment Content: The world is entering a new era of the COVID-19 pandemic in which there is an increasing call for reliable antibody testing. To support decision making on the deployment of serology for either population screening or diagnostics, we present a detailed comparison of serological COVID-19 assays. We show that among the selected assays there is a wide diversity in assay performance in different scenarios and when correlated to virus neutralizing antibodies. The Wantai ELISA detecting total immunoglobulins against the receptor binding domain of SARS CoV-2, has the best overall characteristics to detect functional antibodies in different stages and severity of disease, including the potential to set a cut-off indicating the presence of protective antibodies. The large variety of available serological assays requires proper assay validation before deciding on deployment of assays for specific applications.

Title: Design of a peptide-based subunit vaccine against novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Content: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging infectious disease that was first reported in Wuhan, China, and has subsequently spread worldwide. In the absence of any antiviral or immunomodulatory therapies, the disease is spreading at an alarming rate. A possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19 in places where lockdowns have already worked is also developing. Thus, for controlling COVID-19, vaccines may be a better option than drugs. An mRNA-based anti-COVID-19 candidate vaccine has entered a phase 1 clinical trial. However, its efficacy and potency have to be evaluated and validated. Since vaccines have high failure rates, as an alternative, we are presenting a new, designed multi-peptide subunit-based epitope vaccine against COVID-19. The recombinant vaccine construct comprises an adjuvant, cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL), helper T-lymphocyte (HTL), and B-cell epitopes joined by linkers. The computational data suggest that the vaccine is non-toxic, non-allergenic, thermostable, with the capability to elicit a humoral and cell-mediated immune response. The stabilization of the vaccine construct is validated with molecular dynamics simulation studies. This unique vaccine is made up of 33 highly antigenic epitopes from three proteins that have a prominent role in host-receptor recognition, viral entry, and pathogenicity. We advocate this vaccine must be synthesized and tested urgently as a public health priority.

Title: Towards Precision Medicine: Inclusion of Sex and Gender Aspects in COVID-19 Clinical Studies-Acting Now before It Is Too Late-A Joint Call for Action Content: The COVID-19 global pandemic is accelerating investigations for effective vaccines and repurposable validated therapeutics [...].

Title: Towards Precision Medicine: Inclusion of Sex and Gender Aspects in COVID-19 Clinical Studies—Acting Now before It Is Too Late—A Joint Call for Action Content: The COVID-19 global pandemic is accelerating investigations for effective vaccines and repurposable validated therapeutics [...].

Title: Current global vaccine and drug efforts against COVID-19: Pros and cons of bypassing animal trials Content: COVID-19 has become one of the biggest health concern, along with huge economic burden. With no clear remedies to treat the disease, doctors are repurposing drugs like chloroquine and remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients. In parallel, research institutes in collaboration with biotech companies have identified strategies to use viral proteins as vaccine candidates for COVID-19. Although this looks promising, they still need to pass the test of challenge studies in animal models. As various models for SARS-CoV-2 are under testing phase, biotech companies have bypassed animal studies and moved to Phase I clinical trials. In view of the present outbreak, this looks a justified approach, but the problem is that in the absence of animal studies, we can never predict the outcomes in humans. Since animal models are critical for vaccine development and SARS-CoV-2 has different transmission dynamics, in this review we compare different animal models of SARS-CoV-2 with humans for their pathogenic, immune response and transmission dynamics that make them ideal models for vaccine testing for COVID-19. Another issue of using animal model is the ethics of using animals for research; thus, we also discuss the pros and cons of using animals for vaccine development studies.

Title: Current global vaccine and drug efforts against COVID-19: Pros and cons of bypassing animal trials. Content: COVID-19 has become one of the biggest health concern, along with huge economic burden. With no clear remedies to treat the disease, doctors are repurposing drugs like chloroquine and remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients. In parallel, research institutes in collaboration with biotech companies have identified strategies to use viral proteins as vaccine candidates for COVID-19. Although this looks promising, they still need to pass the test of challenge studies in animal models. As various models for SARS-CoV-2 are under testing phase, biotech companies have bypassed animal studies and moved to Phase I clinical trials. In view of the present outbreak, this looks a justified approach, but the problem is that in the absence of animal studies, we can never predict the outcomes in humans. Since animal models are critical for vaccine development and SARS-CoV-2 has different transmission dynamics, in this review we compare different animal models of SARS-CoV-2 with humans for their pathogenic, immune response and transmission dynamics that make them ideal models for vaccine testing for COVID-19. Another issue of using animal model is the ethics of using animals for research; thus, we also discuss the pros and cons of using animals for vaccine development studies.

Title: SARS-CoV-2 assays to detect functional antibody responses that block ACE2 recognition in vaccinated animals and infected patients Content: SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) has caused a global pandemic of COVID-19 resulting in cases of mild to severe respiratory distress and significant mortality. The global outbreak of this novel coronavirus has now infected >8 million people worldwide with >2 million cases in the US (June 17th, 2020). There is an urgent need for vaccines and therapeutics to combat the spread of this coronavirus. Similarly, the development of diagnostic and research tools to determine infection and vaccine efficacy are critically needed. Molecular assays have been developed to determine viral genetic material present in patients. Serological assays have been developed to determine humoral responses to the spike protein or receptor binding domain (RBD). Detection of functional antibodies can be accomplished through neutralization of live SARS-CoV2 virus, but requires significant expertise, an infectible stable cell line, a specialized BioSafety Level 3 (BSL-3) facility. As large numbers of people return from quarantine, it is critical to have rapid diagnostics that can be widely adopted and employed to assess functional antibody levels in the returning workforce. This type of surrogate neutralization diagnostic can also be used to assess humoral immune responses induced in patients from the large number of vaccine and immunotherapy trials currently on-going. Here we describe a rapid serological diagnostic assay for determining antibody receptor blocking and demonstrate the broad utility of the assay by measuring the antibody functionality of sera from small animals and non-human primates immunized with an experimental SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and using sera from infected patients.

Title: A Snapshot of the Global Race for Vaccines Targeting SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 Pandemic Content: A novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 causing Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has entered the human population and has spread rapidly around the world in the first half of 2020 causing a global pandemic. The virus uses its spike glycoprotein receptor-binding domain to interact with host cell angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) sites to initiate a cascade of events that culminate in severe acute respiratory syndrome in some individuals. In efforts to curtail viral spread, authorities initiated far-reaching lockdowns that have disrupted global economies. The scientific and medical communities are mounting serious efforts to limit this pandemic and subsequent waves of viral spread by developing preventative vaccines and repurposing existing drugs as potential therapies. In this review, we focus on the latest developments in COVID-19 vaccine development, including results of the first Phase I clinical trials and describe a number of the early candidates that are emerging in the field. We seek to provide a balanced coverage of the seven main platforms used in vaccine development that will lead to a desired target product profile for the “ideal” vaccine. Using tales of past vaccine discovery efforts that have taken many years or that have failed, we temper over exuberant enthusiasm with cautious optimism that the global medical community will reach the elusive target to treat COVID-19 and end the pandemic.

Title: BCG vaccination strategy implemented to reduce the impact of COVID-19: Hype or Hope? Content: Abstract The Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine (BCG vaccine) designed to prevent tuberculosis in children has been shown to induce a adaptive immune response in the body to fight against bacteria as well as other parasites and viruses. This knowledge has been reciprocated to generate the idea that this vaccine can also offer protection against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV-2). Some recent pre-print articles have highlighted that countries with mass BCG immunizations seems to have a lower incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) compared to those without BCG immunization. There are yet no experimental proof of any such association and the world health organisation (WHO) is currently testing the theory with clinical trials on selected cohorts. Epidemiologists and other scientific experts has expressed both their hope and concern simultaneously regarding the success theory of BCG vaccination to prevent COVID-19. Though its still not verified in any way whether the BCG vaccination can actually prevent COVID-19 or not but we believe a thorough analytical research in this regard is indeed worth a shot.

Title: Laboratory Tests for COVID-19: A Review of Peer-Reviewed Publications and Implications for Clinical UIse. Content: Diagnostic tests for the coronavirus infection 2019 (COVID-19) are critical for prompt diagnosis, treatment and isolation to break the cycle of transmission. A positive real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), in conjunction with clinical and epidemiologic data, is the current standard for diagnosis, but several challenges still exist. Serological assays help to understand epidemiology better and to evaluate vaccine responses but they are unreliable for diagnosis in the acute phase of illness or assuming protective immunity. Serology is gaining attention, mainly because of convalescent plasma gaining importance as treatment for clinically worsening COVID-19 patients. We provide a narrative review of peer-reviewed research studies on RT-PCR, serology and antigen immune-assays for COVID-19, briefly describe their lab methods and discuss their limitations for clinical practice.

Title: [At least 68 vaccine candidates under development]. Content: The development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 is progressing at an unparalleled speed. As of the 29th of March, there were at least 68 vaccine candidates comprising several different vaccine designs, including whole killed virus, subunit, attenuated, viral vector, DNA and mRNA vaccines. Whilst it usually takes 10-15 years to develop a vaccine, it has only taken just over 9 weeks from the publication of the viral genetic sequence for the first vaccine candidate to reach clinical testing. Development has been expediated by using existing technological platforms and by performing preclinical and clinical testing simultaneously.

Title: Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma using a Coronavirus Antigen Microarray Content: The current practice for diagnosis of COVID-19, based on SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing of pharyngeal or respiratory specimens in a symptomatic patient at high epidemiologic risk, likely underestimates the true prevalence of infection. Serologic methods can more accurately estimate the disease burden by detecting infections missed by the limited testing performed to date. Here, we describe the validation of a coronavirus antigen microarray containing immunologically significant antigens from SARS-CoV-2, in addition to SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, common human coronavirus strains, and other common respiratory viruses. A comparison of antibody profiles detected on the array from control sera collected prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic versus convalescent blood specimens from virologically confirmed COVID-19 cases demonstrates complete discrimination of these two groups. This array can be used as a diagnostic tool, as an epidemiologic tool to more accurately estimate the disease burden of COVID-19, and as a research tool to correlate antibody responses with clinical outcomes.

Title: The quest to find an effective vaccine for COVID-19 Content: Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, delves into history and discusses the international quest to develop an effective vaccine to tackle COVID-19.

Title: The quest to find an effective vaccine for COVID-19. Content: Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, delves into history and discusses the international quest to develop an effective vaccine to tackle COVID-19.

Title: Cardiovascular disease due to novel coronavirus and the search for investigational therapies Content: OBJECTIVE: The primary purpose of the study was to investigate and to summarize the registered trials that listed COVID-19 as the primary condition. METHODS: We performed a search on ClinicalTrials.gov using the independent search terms COVID-19, SARS, and SARS-CoV-2 and then downloaded the data file on March 23, 2020. All trials were downloaded to a csv file and searched for appropriateness. RESULTS: Of 124 registered trials, 56 (45.2%) were listed as recruiting. The majority (85 [68.5%]) were classified as interventional, 37 (29.8%) as observational, and one (0.8%) each as either expanded access: individual patients|treatment investigational new drug/protocol or expanded access: intermediate-size population|treatment investigational new drug/protocol. There were 67 (54.0%) trials that listed drug as the type of study. Immunologic and antiviral trials were the most common, representing approximately 30% and 21%, respectively. When immunologic and antiviral drugs were used alone or in combination, they represented 41.9% and 34.4%, respectively. Antimalarial agents are represented in 7.5% of trials. Approximately 14% of trials involved traditional Chinese medicine. The study agents used solely or in combination represented approximately 80% of therapeutic approaches to COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: There was a large and quick response on ClinicalTrials.gov to the COVID-19 outbreak. Many of the registered trials are currently recruiting new patients, whereas some will begin in the near future. Specific potential experimental therapies, including dosing and monitoring, might be found by reviewing content. Within ClinicalTrials.gov, patients, family members, health care professionals, and researchers can search and find ongoing and future trials for COVID-19.

Title: An integrated in silico immuno-genetic analytical platform provides insights into COVID-19 serological and vaccine targets Content: Background The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a major global health and socio-economic burden, instigating the mobilisation of resources into the development of control tools, such as diagnostics and vaccines. The poor performance of some diagnostic serological tools has emphasised the need for up to date immune-informatic analyses to inform the selection of viable targets for further study. This requires the integration and analysis of genetic and immunological data for SARS-CoV-2 and its homology with other human coronavirus species to understand cross-reactivity. Methods We have developed an online tool for SARS-CoV-2 research, which combines an extensive epitope mapping and prediction meta-analysis, with an updated variant database (55,944 non-synonymous mutations) based on 16,087 whole genome sequences, and an analysis of human coronavirus homology. To demonstrate its utility, we present an integrated analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 spike and nucleocapsid proteins, which are candidate vaccine and serological diagnostic targets. Results Our analysis reveals that the nucleocapsid protein in its native form appears to be a sub-optimal target for use in serological diagnostic platforms. Whilst, a further analysis suggests that orf3a proteins may be a suitable alternative target for diagnostic assays. Conclusions The tool can be accessed online (http://genomics.lshtm.ac.uk/immuno) and will serve as a useful tool for biological discovery in the fight against SARS-CoV-2. Further, it may be adapted to inform on biological targets in future outbreaks, including new human coronaviruses that spill over from animal hosts.

Title: Why We (Probably) Must Deliberately Infect Content: In the grip of a pandemic of proportions that have not been seen for generations, some have proposed conducting “human challenge” vaccine trials in which healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Such trials might substantially speed up the search for a safe and effective vaccine and save many thousands of lives. I argue that such trials are not only permissible, but given reasonable assumptions, they are morally required, subject to some important caveats.

Title: Interest in COVID-19 vaccine trials participation among young adults in China: Willingness, reasons for hesitancy, and demographic and psychosocial determinants Content: Background: With the demand for rapid COVID-19 vaccine development and evaluation, this paper aimed to describe the prevalence and correlates of willingness to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials among university students in China. Methods: A cross-sectional survey with 1,912 Chinese university students was conducted during March and April 2020. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify variables associated with willingness to participate. Results: The majority of participants (64.01%) indicated willingness to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials. Hesitancy over signing informed consent documents, concerns over time necessary for participating in a medical study, and perceived COVID-19 societal stigma were identified as deterrents, whereas lower socioeconomic status, female gender, perception of likely COVID-19 infection during the pandemic, and COVID-19 prosocial behaviors were facilitative factors. Further, public health mistrust and hesitancy over signing informed consent documents had a significant interactive effect on vaccine trial willingness. Conclusions: High standards of ethical and scientific practice are needed in COVID-19 vaccine research, including providing potential participants full and accurate information and ensuring participation free of coercion, socioeconomic inequality, and stigma. Attending to the needs of marginalized groups and addressing psychosocial factors including stigma and public health mistrust may also be important to COVID-19 vaccine development and future uptake.

Title: SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing – Questions to be asked Content: ABSTRACT SARS-CoV-2 infection and development of COVID-19 disease presents a major healthcare challenge of global dimensions. Laboratory diagnostics of infected patients, and the assessment of immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus presents a major cornerstone in handling the pandemic. Currently there is an increase in demand of antibody testing and a large number of tests are already marketed or in the late stage of development. However, the interpretation of test results depends on many variables and factors, including sensitivity, specificity, potential cross-reactivity and cross-protectivity; the diagnostic value of antibodies of different isotypes, the use of antibody testing in identification of acutely ill patients or in epidemiological settings. In this article the recently established COVID-19 Task Force of the German Society for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (DGKL) addresses these issues based on the currently available datasets in this rapidly moving field.

Title: Disease X ver1.0: COVID-19 Content: The SARS-Cov2 has presented the world with a novel pandemic challenge requiring a rapid response. This article provides a May 2020 snapshot from Professor Paul Young, who is part of a group working with urgency on Australia’s leading COVID-19 candidate vaccine.

Title: COVID-19: How has the scientific community risen to the challenge? Content: As the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spreads around the world, scientists have raced to develop vaccines and tests in order to curb the infection.

Title: COVID-19: Learning from Lessons To Guide Treatment and Prevention Interventions Content: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the novel coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and first emerged in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Since then, the virus has rapidly spread to many countries. While the outbreak in China appears to be in decline, the disease has spread across the world, with a daily increase in the number of confirmed cases and infection-related deaths. Here, we highlight (i) the lessons that have been learnt so far and how they will benefit reducing the impact of COVID-19 disease and (ii) an update on the status of drug treatment and vaccine development to prevent COVID-19 and potential future related pandemics. Although the mortality rate is clearly higher than for influenza, the rate does seem to vary from country to country, possibly reflecting differences in how rapidly local health authorities respond to isolate and effectively care for the affected population. Drugs are urgently needed for both prophylaxis and the treatment of severely ill patients; however, no proven effective therapies for SARS-CoV-2 currently exist. A number of drugs that have been approved for other diseases are being tested for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, but there is an absence of data from appropriately designed clinical trials showing that these drugs, either alone or in combination, will prove effective. There is also a global urgency to develop a vaccine against COVID-19, but development and appropriate testing will take at least a year before such a vaccine will be globally available. This review summarizes the lessons learnt so far from the COVID-19 pandemic, examines the evidence regarding the drugs that are being tested for the treatment of COVID19, and describes the progress made in efforts to develop an effective vaccine.

Title: An insight into the epitope-based peptide vaccine design strategy and studies against COVID-19 Content: SARS-CoV-2 is a new member of the coronavirus family and caused the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in 2020. It is crucial to design and produce an effective vaccine for the prevention of rapid transmission and possible deaths wcaused by the disease. Although intensive work and research are being carried out all over the world to develop a vaccine, an effective and approved formulation that can prevent the infection and limit the outbreak has not been announced yet. Among all types of vaccines, epitope-based peptide vaccines outshine with their low-cost production, easy modification in the structure, and safety. In this review, vaccine studies against COVID-19 have been summarized and detailed information about the epitope-based peptide vaccines against COVID-19 has been provided. We have not only compared the peptide vaccine with other types of vaccines but also presented comprehensive literature information about development steps for an effective and protective formulation to give an insight into on-going peptide vaccine studies against SARS-CoV-2.

Title: Towards effective COVID-19 vaccines: Updates, perspectives and challenges (Review) Content: In the current context of the pandemic triggered by SARS-COV-2, the immunization of the population through vaccination is recognized as a public health priority. In the case of SARS-COV-2, the genetic sequencing was done quickly, in one month. Since then, worldwide research has focused on obtaining a vaccine. This has a major economic impact because new technological platforms and advanced genetic engineering procedures are required to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine. The most difficult scientific challenge for this future vaccine obtained in the laboratory is the proof of clinical safety and efficacy. The biggest challenge of manufacturing is the construction and validation of production platforms capable of making the vaccine on a large scale.

Title: Review on the global epidemiological situation and the efficacy of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19 Content: Covid-19 disease is caused by SARS-CoV-2, a virus belonging to the coronavirus family. Covid-19 is so new that there is currently no specific vaccine or treatment. Clinical trials are currently underway. In vitro tests are also being conducted to assess the efficacy of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of this epidemic, which is considered a pandemic by the WHO. We note that the content of this review is dated. The information it contains is subject to change and modification as the epidemic progresses.

Title: COVID-19 vaccines: A race against time in the middle of death and devastation! Content: The COVID-19 has turned in to a global human tragedy and economic devastation. Governments have implemented lockdown measures, blocked international travel, and enforced other public containment measures to mitigate the virus morbidity and mortality. As of today, no drug has the power to fight the infection and bring normalcy to the utter chaos. This leaves us with only one choice namely an effective and safe vaccine that shall be manufactured as soon as possible and available to all countries and populations affected by the pandemic at an affordable price. There has been an unprecedented fast track path taken in Research & Development (R&D) by the World community for developing an effective and safe vaccine. Platform technology has been exploited to develop candidate vaccines in a matter of days to weeks and as of now, 108 such vaccines are available. Six of these vaccines have entered clinical trials. As clinical trials are ‘rate-limiting’ and ‘time-consuming’, many innovative methods are in practice for a fast track. These include parallel phase I-II trials and obtaining efficacy data from phase IIb trials. Human ‘challenge experiments’ to confirm efficacy in humans is under serious consideration. The availability of the COVID-19 vaccine has become a race against time in the middle of death and devastation. There is an atmosphere of tremendous hype around the COVID-19 vaccine and developers are using every moment to make claims, which remain unverified. However, concerns are raised about a rush to deploy a COVID-19 vaccine. Applying ‘Quick fix’ and ‘short cuts’ can lead to errors with disastrous consequences.

Title: Determinants of intent to uptake Coronavirus vaccination among respondents in Saudi Arabia: a web-based national survey Content: Background Vaccine hesitancy is a potential threat to global public health. Since, there is an unprecedented global effort to develop a vaccine against the COVID-19 disease much less is known about its acceptance in the community. Understanding key determinants that influence the preferences and demands of a future vaccine by the community may help to develop strategies for improving the global vaccination program. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of the acceptancy of COVID-19 vaccine and their determinants among people in Saudi Arabia. Methods A web-based cross-sectional study was designed using snowball sampling strategies under a highly restricted environment. A bilingual self-administered anonymous questionnaire was designed and send to 1000 study participants through social media platforms and email. Study participants were recruited across the country, including the four major cities (Riyadh, Dammam, Jeddah, and Abha) in Saudi Arabia. Associations between COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and sociodemographic profile of the respondents were explored using the chi-squared test. Key determinants in predicting vaccine acceptancy among respondents were modelled using logistic regression analysis. Results Of the 1000 survey invitees 992 responded to the survey. The majority of the study participants (29.53%) were in the age group (36 to 45 years) and 65.8% were female and 17.9% were Non-Saudi participants. Of the 992 respondents 642 said they are interested in taking the COVID-19 vaccine once it is available. Willingness to accept a future COVID-19 vaccine is relatively high among older age groups (79.2% among 45+ year old), married participants (69.3%), participants with education levels of a postgraduate degree or higher (68.8%), non-Saudi (69.1%), workings with government sector (68.9%). In multivariate model, respondents who were above 45 years (aOR: 2.15; 95% CI: 1.08-3.21), and married (aOR: 1.79; 95% CI: 1.28-2.50) were significantly associated with vaccine acceptance (p < .05). Besides, people having trust in the health system were most likely to accept vaccination (aOR: 3.05; 95% CI: 1.13-4.92).Participants having a higher perceived risk of acquiring infection were 2.13 times higher odds of reporting their intention to uptake the COVID-19 vaccine (aOR: 2.13; 95% CI: 1.35-3.85). Conclusion Addressing sociodemographic determinants relating to the COVID-19 vaccination may help to increase uptake of the global vaccination program to tackle future pandemics. Targeted health education measures are needed among the general population to increase the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Title: Mutations on COVID-19 diagnostic targets Content: Effective, sensitive, and reliable diagnostic reagents are of paramount importance for combating the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic at a time there is no preventive vaccine nor specific drug available for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It would be an absolute tragedy if currently used diagnostic reagents are undermined in any manner. Based on the genotyping of 7818 SARS-CoV-2 genome samples collected up to May 1, 2020, we reveal that essentially all of the current COVID-19 diagnostic targets have had mutations. We further show that SARS-CoV-2 has the most devastating mutations on the targets of various nucleocapsid (N) gene primers and probes, which have been unfortunately used by countries around the world to diagnose COVID-19. Our findings explain what has seriously gone wrong with a specific diagnostic reagent made in China. To understand whether SARS-CoV-2 genes have mutated unevenly, we have computed the mutation ratio and mutation $h$-index of all SARS-CoV genes, indicating that the N gene is the most non-conservative gene in the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Our findings enable researchers to target the most conservative SARS-CoV-2 genes and proteins for the design and development of COVID-19 diagnostic reagents, preventive vaccines, and therapeutic medicines.

Title: Prospects of Replication-Deficient Adenovirus Based Vaccine Development against SARS-CoV-2. Content: The current appearance of the new SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and it quickly spreading across the world poses a global health emergency. The serious outbreak position is affecting people worldwide and requires rapid measures to be taken by healthcare systems and governments. Vaccinations represent the most effective strategy to prevent the epidemic of the virus and to further reduce morbidity and mortality with long-lasting effects. Nevertheless, currently there are no licensed vaccines for the novel coronaviruses. Researchers and clinicians from all over the world are advancing the development of a vaccine against novel human SARS-CoV-2 using various approaches. Herein, we aim to present and discuss the progress and prospects in the field of vaccine research towards SARS-CoV-2 using adenovirus (AdV) replication deficient-based strategies, with a comprehension that may support research and combat this recent world health emergency.

Title: Prospects of Replication-Deficient Adenovirus Based Vaccine Development against SARS-CoV-2 Content: The current appearance of the new SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and it quickly spreading across the world poses a global health emergency. The serious outbreak position is affecting people worldwide and requires rapid measures to be taken by healthcare systems and governments. Vaccinations represent the most effective strategy to prevent the epidemic of the virus and to further reduce morbidity and mortality with long-lasting effects. Nevertheless, currently there are no licensed vaccines for the novel coronaviruses. Researchers and clinicians from all over the world are advancing the development of a vaccine against novel human SARS-CoV-2 using various approaches. Herein, we aim to present and discuss the progress and prospects in the field of vaccine research towards SARS-CoV-2 using adenovirus (AdV) replication deficient-based strategies, with a comprehension that may support research and combat this recent world health emergency.

Title: Overcoming the bottleneck to widespread testing: a rapid review of nucleic acid testing approaches for COVID-19 detection Content: The current COVID-19 pandemic presents a serious public health crisis, and a better understanding of the scope and spread of the virus would be aided by more widespread testing. Nucleic-acid-based tests currently offer the most sensitive and early detection of COVID-19. However, the "gold standard" test pioneered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention takes several hours to complete and requires extensive human labor, materials such as RNA extraction kits that could become in short supply, and relatively scarce qPCR machines. It is clear that a huge effort needs to be made to scale up current COVID-19 testing by orders of magnitude. There is thus a pressing need to evaluate alternative protocols, reagents, and approaches to allow nucleic-acid testing to continue in the face of these potential shortages. There has been a tremendous explosion in the number of papers written within the first weeks of the pandemic evaluating potential advances, comparable reagents, and alternatives to the "gold-standard" CDC RT-PCR test. Here we present a collection of these recent advances in COVID-19 nucleic acid testing, including both peer-reviewed and preprint articles. Due to the rapid developments during this crisis, we have included as many publications as possible, but many of the cited sources have not yet been peer-reviewed, so we urge researchers to further validate results in their own laboratories. We hope that this review can urgently consolidate and disseminate information to aid researchers in designing and implementing optimized COVID-19 testing protocols to increase the availability, accuracy, and speed of widespread COVID-19 testing.

Title: New blood tests for antibodies could show true scale of coronavirus pandemic Content: How many COVID-19 cases have gone undetected? And are those who had mild cases of the disease—perhaps so mild they dismissed it as a cold or allergies—immune to new infections? If so, they could slow the spread of the burgeoning pandemic Labs and companies around the world have raced to develop antibody tests, and a few have been used in small studies and received commercial approval, including several from China But so far, large-scale data from such tests—for example showing what fraction of people in the hard-hit city of Wuhan, China, might now be immune—is still lacking or at least not public Scientists hope that will soon change as more tests become available

Title: Repurposed prophylaxis strategies for COVID-19: a systematic review Content: Introduction Efficient therapeutic strategies are needed to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS- CoV-2 virus. In a context where specific vaccines are not yet available, the containment of the pandemic would be facilitated with efficient prophylaxis. Methods We screened several clinical trials repositories and platforms in search of the prophylactic strategies that are investigated against COVID-19 in late April 2020. Results Up to April 27, 2020, we found 68 clinical trials targeting medical workers (n=43, 63%), patients relatives (n=16, 24%) or individuals at risk of severe COVID-19 (n=5, 7%). (Hydroxy)chloroquine was the most frequently evaluated treatment (n=46, 68%), before BCG vaccine (n=5, 7%). Sixty-one (90%) clinical trials were randomized with a median of planned inclusions of 600 (IQR 255-1515). Conclusion The investigated prophylaxis strategies cover both pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis and study numerous immune enhancers and antivirals, although most research efforts are focused on (hydroxy)chloroquine.

Title: Design of a peptide-based subunit vaccine against novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Content: Abstract Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging infectious disease that was first reported in Wuhan, China, and has subsequently spread worldwide. In the absence of any antiviral or immunomodulatory therapies, the disease is spreading at an alarming rate. A possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19 in places where lockdowns have already worked is also developing. Thus, for controlling COVID-19, vaccines may be a better option than drugs. An mRNA-based anti-COVID-19 candidate vaccine has entered a phase 1 clinical trial. However, its efficacy and potency have to be evaluated and validated. Since vaccines have high failure rates, as an alternative, we are presenting a new, designed multi-peptide subunit-based epitope vaccine against COVID-19. The recombinant vaccine construct comprises an adjuvant, cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL), helper T-lymphocyte (HTL), and B-cell epitopes joined by linkers. The computational data suggest that the vaccine is non-toxic, non-allergenic, thermostable, with the capability to elicit a humoral and cell-mediated immune response. The stabilization of the vaccine construct is validated with molecular dynamics simulation studies. This unique vaccine is made up of 33 highly antigenic epitopes from three proteins that have a prominent role in host-receptor recognition, viral entry, and pathogenicity. We advocate this vaccine must be synthesized and tested urgently as a public health priority.

Title: COVID-19 Serological Tests: How Well Do They Actually Perform? Content: In only a few months after initial discovery in Wuhan, China, SARS-CoV-2 and the associated coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have become a global pandemic causing significant mortality and morbidity and implementation of strict isolation measures In the absence of vaccines and effective therapeutics, reliable serological testing must be a key element of public health policy to control further spread of the disease and gradually remove quarantine measures Serological diagnostic tests are being increasingly used to provide a broader understanding of COVID-19 incidence and to assess immunity status in the population However, there are discrepancies between claimed and actual performance data for serological diagnostic tests on the market In this study, we conducted a review of independent studies evaluating the performance of SARS-CoV-2 serological tests We found significant variability in the accuracy of marketed tests and highlight several lab-based and point-of-care rapid serological tests with high levels of performance The findings of this review highlight the need for ongoing independent evaluations of commercialized COVID-19 diagnostic tests

Title: SARS-CoV-2 transcriptome analysis and molecular cataloguing of immunodominant epitopes for multi-epitope based vaccine design Content: SARS-CoV-2 is a single-stranded RNA virus that has caused more than 0.29 million deaths worldwide as of May 2020, and influence of COVID-19 pandemic is increasing continuously in the absence of approved vaccine and drug. Moreover, very limited information is available about SARS-CoV-2 expressed regions and immune responses. In this paper an effort has been made, to facilitate vaccine development by proposing multiple epitopes as potential vaccine candidates by utilising SARS-CoV-2 transcriptome data. Here, publicly available RNA-seq data of SARS-CoV-2 infection in NHBE and A549 human cell lines were used to construct SARS-CoV-2 transcriptome to understand disease pathogenesis and immune responses. In the first step, epitope prediction, MHC class I and II gene identification for epitopes, population coverage, antigenicity, immunogenicity, conservation and crossreactivity analysis with host antigens were performed by using SARS-CoV-2 transcriptome, and in the second step, structural compatibility of identified T-and B-cell epitopes were evaluated with MHC molecules and B-cell receptors through molecular docking studies. Quantification of MHC gene expression was also performed that indicated high variation in allele types and expression level of MHC genes with respect to cell lines. In A549 cell line, HLA-A*30:01:01:01 and HLA-B*44:03:01:01 were highly expressed, whereas 92 variants of HLA-A*24 genes such as HLA-A*24:02:01:01, HLA-A*24:286, HLA-A*24:479Q, HLA-A*24:02:134 and HLA-A*24:02:116 were highly expressed in NHBE cell lines. Prevalence of HLA-A*24 alleles was suggested as risk factors for H1N1 infection, and associated with type-1 diabetes. HLA-C*03:03, linked with male infertility factors was also highly expressed in SARS-CoV-2 infected NHBE cell lines. Finally, three potential T-cell and five B-cell epitopes were selected for molecular docking studies with twenty-two MHC molecules and two B-cell receptors respectively. The results of in silico analysis indicated that proposed epitopes have high potential to recognize immune response of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This study will facilitate in vitro and in vivo vaccine related research studies.

Title: Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2: Lessons from Other Coronavirus Strains Content: The emergence of the strain of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) and its impact on global health have made imperative the development of effective and safe vaccines for this lethal strain. SARS-CoV-2 now adds to the list of coronavirus diseases that have threatened global health, along with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) coronaviruses that emerged in 2002/2003 and 2012, respectively. As of April 2020, no vaccine is commercially available for these coronavirus strains. Nevertheless, the knowledge obtained from the vaccine development efforts for MERS and SARS can be of high value for COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). Here, we review the past and ongoing vaccine development efforts for clinically relevant coronavirus strains with the intention that this information helps in the development of effective and safe vaccines for COVID-19. In addition, information from naturally exposed individuals and animal models to coronavirus strains is described for the same purpose of helping into the development of effective vaccines against COVID-19.

Title: Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2: Lessons from Other Coronavirus Strains. Content: The emergence of the strain of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) and its impact on global health have made imperative the development of effective and safe vaccines for this lethal strain. SARS-CoV-2 now adds to the list of coronavirus diseases that have threatened global health, along with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) coronaviruses that emerged in 2002/2003 and 2012, respectively. As of April 2020, no vaccine is commercially available for these coronavirus strains. Nevertheless, the knowledge obtained from the vaccine development efforts for MERS and SARS can be of high value for COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). Here, we review the past and ongoing vaccine development efforts for clinically relevant coronavirus strains with the intention that this information helps in the development of effective and safe vaccines for COVID-19. In addition, information from naturally exposed individuals and animal models to coronavirus strains is described for the same purpose of helping into the development of effective vaccines against COVID-19.

Title: A deep dive into testing and management of COVID-19 for Australian high performance and professional sport Content: The purpose of testing for any communicable disease is to support clinicians in the diagnosis and management of individual patients and to describe transmission dynamics. The novel coronavirus is formally named SARS-CoV-2 and the clinical disease state resulting from an infection is known as COVID-19. Control of the COVID-19 pandemic requires clinicians, epidemiologists, and public health officials to utilise the most comprehensive, accurate and timely information available to manage the rapidly evolving COVID-19 environment. High performance sport is a unique context that may look towards comprehensive testing as a means of risk mitigation. Characteristics of the common testing options are discussed including the circumstances where additional testing may be of benefit and considerations for the associated risks. Finally, a review of the available technology that could be considered for use by medical staff at the point of care (PoC) in a high-performance sporting context is included.

Title: Laboratory Tests for COVID-19: A Review of Peer-Reviewed Publications and Implications for Clinical UIse Content: Diagnostic tests for the coronavirus infection 2019 (COVID-19) are critical for prompt diagnosis, treatment and isolation to break the cycle of transmission A positive real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), in conjunction with clinical and epidemiologic data, is the current standard for diagnosis, but several challenges still exist Serological assays help to understand epidemiology better and to evaluate vaccine responses but they are unreliable for diagnosis in the acute phase of illness or assuming protective immunity Serology is gaining attention, mainly because of convalescent plasma gaining importance as treatment for clinically worsening COVID-19 patients We provide a narrative review of peer-reviewed research studies on RT-PCR, serology and antigen immune-assays for COVID-19, briefly describe their lab methods and discuss their limitations for clinical practice

Title: An overview on COVID-19: reality and expectation Content: Recently, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2), commonly known as coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has rapidly spread across China and around the world. By the declaration of WHO, COVID-19 outbreak considered as a public health problem of international concern. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive view on COVID-19 and the future expectations to control virus progression. Patients with liver disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity are more susceptible to the incidence of COVID-19 infection. So, there is a rapid need for disease diagnosis, vaccine development, and drug discovery to detect, prevent, and treat this sudden and lethal virus. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is considered as a rapid, accurate, and specific tool for disease diagnosis. Under this emergency situation that the world facing against COVID-19, there are about 15 potential vaccine candidates tested globally based on messenger RNA, DNA-based, nanoparticle, synthetic, and modified virus-like particle. Certain drugs that are clinically approved for other diseases were tested against COVID-19 as chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, favipiravir, ribavirin, and remdesivir. Convalescent plasma transfusion and traditional herbal medicine were also taken into consideration. Due to the absence of effective treatment or vaccines against COVID-19 so far, the precautionary measures according to WHO’s strategic objectives are the only way to confront this crisis. Governments should adopt national medical care programs to reduce the risk of exposure to any future viral outbreaks especially to patients with pre-existing medical conditions.

Title: A deep dive into testing and management of COVID-19 for Australian high performance and professional sport Content: Abstract The purpose of testing for any communicable disease is to support clinicians in the diagnosis and management of individual patients and to describe transmission dynamics. The novel coronavirus is formally named SARS-CoV-2 and the clinical disease state resulting from an infection is known as COVID-19. Control of the COVID-19 pandemic requires clinicians, epidemiologists, and public health officials to utilise the most comprehensive, accurate and timely information available to manage the rapidly evolving COVID-19 environment. High performance sport is a unique context that may look towards comprehensive testing as a means of risk mitigation. Characteristics of the common testing options are discussed including the circumstances where additional testing may be of benefit and considerations for the associated risks. Finally, a review of the available technology that could be considered for use by medical staff at the point of care (PoC) in a high-performance sporting context is included.

Title: Triaging moderate COVID-19 and other viral pneumonias from routine blood tests Content: The COVID-19 is sweeping the world with deadly consequences. Its contagious nature and clinical similarity to other pneumonias make separating subjects contracted with COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia a priority and a challenge. However, COVID-19 testing has been greatly limited by the availability and cost of existing methods, even in developed countries like the US. Intrigued by the wide availability of routine blood tests, we propose to leverage them for COVID-19 testing using the power of machine learning. Two proven-robust machine learning model families, random forests (RFs) and support vector machines (SVMs), are employed to tackle the challenge. Trained on blood data from 208 moderate COVID-19 subjects and 86 subjects with non-COVID-19 moderate viral pneumonia, the best result is obtained in an SVM-based classifier with an accuracy of 84%, a sensitivity of 88%, a specificity of 80%, and a precision of 92%. The results are found explainable from both machine learning and medical perspectives. A privacy-protected web portal is set up to help medical personnel in their practice and the trained models are released for developers to further build other applications. We hope our results can help the world fight this pandemic and welcome clinical verification of our approach on larger populations.

Title: The hunt for covid-19 drugs Content: Many drugs and vaccines are now being developed and tested

Title: Exercising caution in correlating COVID-19 incidence and mortality rates with BCG vaccination policies due to variable rates of SARS CoV-2 testing Content: TThe Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine provides protection against tuberculosis (TB), and is proposed to provide protection to non-TB infectious diseases. The COVID-19 outbreak results from infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (CoV-2) and was declared a pandemic on March 11th, 2020. We queried whether the BCG vaccine offers protection against CoV-2 infection. We observed that countries with a current universal BCG vaccination policy have a significantly lower COVID-19 incidence than countries which never had a universal BCG policy or had one in the past. However, population density, median age, TB incidence, urban population, and, most significantly, CoV-2 testing rate, were also connected with BCG policy and could potentially confound the analysis. By limiting the analysis to countries with high CoV-2 testing rates, defined as greater than 2,500 tests per million inhabitants, these parameters were no longer statistically associated with BCG policy. When analyzing only countries with high testing rates, there was no longer a significant association between the number of COVID-19 cases per million inhabitants and the BCG vaccination policy. Although preliminary, our analyses indicate that the BCG vaccination may not offer protection against CoV-2 infection. While reporting biases may confound our observations, our findings support exercising caution in determining potential correlation between BCG vaccination and COVID-19 incidence, in part due significantly lower rates of CoV-2 testing per million inhabitants in countries with current universal BCG vaccination policy.

Title: Cancer therapy and treatments during COVID-19 era Content: The COVID-19 pandemic has put a serious strain on health treatments as well at the economies of many nations. Unfortunately, there is not currently available vaccine for SARS-Cov-2/COVID-19. Various types of patients have delayed treatment or even routine check-ups and we are adapting to a virtual world. In many cases, surgeries are delayed unless they are essential. This is also true with regards to cancer treatments and screening. Interestingly, some existing drugs and nutraceuticals have been screened for their effects on COVID-19. Certain FDA approved drugs, vitamin, natural products and trace minerals may be repurposed to treat or improve the prevention of COVID-19 infections and disease progression. This review article will summarize how the treatments of various cancer patients has changed during the COVID-19 era as well as discuss the promise of some existing drugs and other agents to be repurposed to treat this disease.

Title: Guidance for evaluating and testing patients for COVID‐19 Content: This month's selection provides guidance to evaluate and test patients for COVID‐19.

Title: Overcoming the bottleneck to widespread testing: A rapid review of nucleic acid testing approaches for COVID-19 detection. Content: The current COVID-19 pandemic presents a serious public health crisis, and a better understanding of the scope and spread of the virus would be aided by more widespread testing. Nucleic-acid based tests currently offer the most sensitive and early detection of COVID-19. However, the "gold standard" test pioneered by the United States Center for Disease Control & Prevention, takes several hours to complete and requires extensive human labor, materials such as RNA extraction kits that could become in short supply and relatively scarce qPCR machines. It is clear that a huge effort needs to be made to scale up current COVID-19 testing by orders of magnitude. There is thus a pressing need to evaluate alternative protocols, reagents, and approaches to allow nucleic-acid testing to continue in the face of these potential shortages. There has been a tremendous explosion in the number of papers written within the first weeks of the pandemic evaluating potential advances, comparable reagents, and alternatives to the "gold-standard" CDC RT-PCR test. Here we present a collection of these recent advances in COVID-19 nucleic acid testing, including both peer-reviewed and preprint articles. Due to the rapid developments during this crisis, we have included as many publications as possible, but many of the cited sources have not yet been peer-reviewed, so we urge researchers to further validate results in their own labs. We hope that this review can urgently consolidate and disseminate information to aid researchers in designing and implementing optimized COVID-19 testing protocols to increase the availability, accuracy, and speed of widespread COVID-19 testing.

Title: The role of testing in infectious disease control: A case of COVID-19 in Africa Content: The dramatic increase in COVID-19 suspected cases in Africa has placed enormous burden on public and private clinical facilities. Till date, the most commonly used method for the identification and confirmation of the virus is the laboratory-based reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing. Unfortunately, testing capacities have been limited in many parts of Africa because of inadequate test kits which have restricted scaling up beyond the few public health laboratories at designated locations. We present in this mini-review Africa's preparedness and readiness toward testing, why testing is crucial, the need to immediately strengthen existing facilities and what it involves as combined approaches for managing the COVID-19 crisis. The review highlights the urgent need for speedy expansion and distribution of several laboratory testing platforms to public health facilities and fully accredited private clinical laboratories, including real-time PCR and serological assays.

Title: Screening for COVID-19: Patient factors predicting positive PCR test Content: To inform the efficient allocation of testing resources, we evaluated the characteristics of those tested for COVID-19 to determine predictors of a positive test. Recent travel and exposure to a confirmed case were both highly predictive of positive testing. Symptom-based screening strategies alone may be inadequate to control the ongoing pandemic.