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Francois Lo Presti / AFP via Getty Images
Pfizer and Moderna were the first to deliver approved vaccines for Covid-19, but three other drug manufacturers are following closely and could help give the US and other countries immunity faster.
Novavax is starting a trial with 30,000 people in the US and Mexico for its vaccine, which could be approved in the spring of 2021.
Novavax
vaccine uses proteins to elicit an immune response after it is injected, as well as a substance from Chilean evergreen trees to enhance that response.
Vaccines under development from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson use viral vector technology, in which a modified virus triggers an immune response.
AstraZeneca‘s
The drug is expected to be approved in the UK this week, and the company has said the vaccine should “remain effective” on the variant first discovered there.
More than two million Americans have been vaccinated with cancer to date
Pfizer
and Moderna drugs, both of which use synthetic messenger RNA to trigger the body to produce protective antibodies against the virus.
Having multiple vaccines increases the overall supply and offers options that may be more effective in different cross sections of the population. According to a member of his Covid-19 advisory board, President-elect Joe Biden plans to help juice supply as well by enforcing the Defense Production Act once he takes office in January.
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