The early landscape of COVID‐19 vaccine development in the UK and rest of the world

Sharpe, Hannah R; Gilbride, Ciaran; Allen, Elizabeth; Belij‐Rammerstorfer, Sandra; Bissett, Cameron; Ewer, Katie; Lambe, Teresa

Since the first WHO notification on 31st December 2019, COVID‐19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2, has been responsible for over 4 million confirmed infections, and almost 300,000 deaths worldwide. The pandemic has led to over half of the world's population living under lockdown conditions. To allow normal life to resume, public health interventions will be needed to prevent further waves of infections as lockdown measures are lifted. As one of the most effective countermeasures against infectious diseases, an efficacious vaccine is considered crucial to containing the COVID‐19 pandemic. Following the publication of the genome sequence of SARS‐CoV‐2, vaccine development has accelerated at an unprecedented pace across the world. Here we review the different platforms employed to develop vaccines, the standard timelines of development and how they can be condensed in a pandemic situation. We focus on vaccine development in the UK and vaccines which have entered clinical trials around the world.