It has been more than 365 days since the first reports of COVID-19 surfaced from Wuhan, China. At that moment, little did we know that our lives would change completely for one full year. Ever since the lockdown and a full-blown pandemic, only one thing has kept the fight going. The race and run for a reliable vaccine.
Now, a year later, in a feat of scientific and technological brilliance, we now have vaccines, yes, multiple vaccines, to protect us from COVID-19. A beacon of hope in such testing times. One could say, the shore is in sight.
Almost 50 candidate vaccines are currently in the last phase of clinical trials, while 150 new ones are in the pre-clinical stages. These stats are a reassurance of better days to come.
Arguably this is the first time, the great minds in the laboratory have been able to create, test and administer a vaccine in a year’s time. Typically, it takes about 5 years for a vaccine to be created, tested in the labs and then clinically tested on human beings.
This brings us to the question, which countries have approved the use of vaccines.
Here’s a list of the top countries and the vaccines their health regulatory bodies prescribe.
India: India has approved the emergency use of two vaccines: 1. The vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca. 2. The vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech. The Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine is locally being manufactured by the serum institute of India and is producing 50 million doses a month. India plans to inoculate at least 300 million people by this year.
USA: The United States’ regulatory body, FDA has approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Modena vaccine to inoculate the residents of the USA. Given that the country tops the list on the number of COVID-19 related deaths, it plans to vaccinate at least 100 million people by April 2021.
UK: The United Kingdom has approved the use of three vaccines. 1. Moderna Vaccine. 2. Oxford and AstraZeneca Vaccine. 3. Pfizer BioNTech Vaccine. With the new strain of mutated COVID-19 trying to halt the United Kingdom in their tracks, they place their hope on vaccines to see them through.
Japan: The country has approved the use of 2 vaccines. 1. Oxford and AstraZeneca’s Vaccine 2. Moderna Vaccine. Japan has announced that the vaccine will be made available free of cost to all 126 million residents of Japan.
Australia: While the country faces another outbreak of COVID-19, the country is yet to approve the use of a vaccine. They’re hoping to come to a conclusion soon and in all probability to go ahead with Pfizer BioNTech.
The development of these vaccines is good news for the world, you can read more here. This is indeed good news, and specifically for the travel community at large as borders could open up completely and we could go back to normalcy.
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