Beijing, May 31: The race to develop COVID-19 vaccine has intensified, with the top four candidates reporting major progress in the past few days. Sinovac Biotech, the pharmaceutical company based in China, said it is 99 percent sure that its vaccine would be successful. Moderna Therapeutics based in the United States, which is also among the frontrunners, has initiated phase two of clinical trials. GSK to Produce 1 Billion Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Next Year.

The close competition between Sinovac and Moderna also reflects the rivalry between the China and US - the two nations are eyeing to release the vaccine before the other to reap global goodwill, say experts. Both the countries have announced that once the vaccine is developed, it will be shared with the entire world to restrict the number of fatalities.

Sinovac, which has reached stage two of the trials, said it has been successful so far and is likely to complete the third and final phase of the trials - which involves humans - in the United Kingdom.

A top researcher in the pharmaceutical company - Luo Baishan - told Skymet News on Saturday that the company is "99 percent sure of the success". A statement issued by the company in Beijing claimed that the vaccine could be out by December-end of 2020 or early 2021. In the initial round, 100 to 120 million of the vaccine doses would be produced.

The mRNA vaccine of Moderna has also similarly cleared the initial hurdles and did not appear to pose any major adverse effects. Within 63 days from testing in the lab, the vaccine has not shifted for human trials in Cambridge.

The pandemic has so far infected nearly 6.2 million persons across the globe and claimed more than 371,500 lives. The virus outbreak was reported in China in November 2019. The worst-affected country in the world is stated to be United States -- where the tally of infections has peaked to above 1.8 million and the number of deaths crossed 105,000.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 31, 2020 06:46 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).