The most recent news is that Russia had begun testing a vaccine.
However, regardless of the source of the vaccine, I would be very sceptical of any vaccine that has been developed in such a short space of time.
Rajkumar Rajendram I concur with you in respect to the time. But is there a possibility that the vaccine could just be a repurposed one? In which case that would cut down the development time for the vaccine!
Please see the link below.
https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
This is a novel virus and so I do not believe that repurposing a vaccine will result in sufficient immune response to provide adequate protection.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that his country is the first in the world to register vaccine against COVID-19.
http://unb.com.bd/category/World/who-in-talks-with-russia-on-covid-19-vaccine/55872
Please have a look at the link below:
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/august-21-coronavirus-vaccine-latest-covid-19-updates-6563636/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY67HozpvU8&feature=youtu.be?v=FoydmuSrs9Y?utm_source=silverchair&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=article_alert-jama&utm_content=olf&utm_term=082420
Registering a vaccine in a country without establishing safety and efficacy of the vaccine in a double blind placebo-controlled trial should not be a news. I am surprised at too much attention given to the Russian vaccine. There are at least 15 vaccines which have undergone similar phase 1/2 trials, these could also be registered in Russia. Even any vaccine approved by the US FDA under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) should not be considered a vaccine worth taking. Unsafe and un-efficacious vaccines can do more harm to the population and will have people lose trust in vaccines.
Press Release of BioNTech and Pfizer as of yesterday:
mRNA Vaccine candedate has 90 % effective protection in 43,000 phase 3 clinical study, see https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-vaccine-candidate-against-covid-19
Emergency Use Approval will be applied for with the US FDA and EU regulators next week... A spark of hope!
Here is a new list of the current Top 10 COVID-19 vaccines from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html BioNTech/Pfizer is the first, that is widely available and Moderna will follow soon. And then hopefully AstraZeneca soon as well. Some very good candidates are not even on the list yet (Curevac from Tübingen)
Hopefully we will have some data on the effectiveness of the present vaccines soon.
Today the UK has formally issued an Emergency Use Permit (EUA) for the AstraZeneca COVID-19-vaccine for the UK... (tagesschau.de)
On vaccines the best one most recent global update from NUS on March 25, 2021
https://youtu.be/bT8jCbC3DY0