Vaccines work by imitating an infection and triggering the immune system to make white blood cells and antibodies to fight the infection. Currently, there are five different types of vaccines being tested in Phase 3 trials to see if they help prevent COVID-19: mRNA vaccines, non-replicating viral vector vaccines, inactivated vaccines, live attenuated vaccines, and protein subunit vaccine. The table below lists the vaccines currently being tested in Phase 3 studies and shows which type of vaccine they are.
Want to know more about how the different types of vaccines work?
- This 2-page flyer from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides information about the older types of vaccines.
- This 3-page paper from the journal Nature includes information about the newer vaccines.
Vaccine Types
Vaccine (Developer) mRNA Non-Replicating Viral Vector Protein Subunit Protein Based Virus-Like Particles Peptide Based DNA Inactivated Live Attenuated BNT162b2 (Pfizer/BioNTech) X CVnCoV (CureVac AG, Germany) X mRNA-1273 (Moderna, United States) X JNJ-78436735, Also known as Ad26.COV2.S (Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V. of Johnson & Johnson, United States) X AZD1222, Also known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AstraZeneca/Oxford, UK) X Recombinant Novel Coronavirus vaccine, Adenovirus Type 5 Vector (CanSino, China) X Gam-COVID-Vac, Also known as Sputnik V (Gamaleya Research Institute, Russia) X NVXCoV2373, Also known as SARS-CoV-2 rS With Matrix-M1 Adjuvant (Novavax, United States) X AS03-adjuvanted SCB-2019 (Clover Biopharmaceuticals AUS, China) X ZF2001 (Chinese Academy of Sciences) X CoVLP (Medicago, Canada) X UB-612 (Covaxx, United States) X INO-4800 (Inovio Pharmaceuticals, United States) X AG0302-COVID19 (AnGes, Japan) X Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine, Vero Cell, (Multiple manufacturers) X QazCovid-in® (Res Inst Biolog Saf Prob, Kazakhstan) X BBV152, Also known as Covaxin (Bharat Biotech, India) X Measles-Rubella or Measles-Mumps-Rubella X Oral polio X BCG (Used to prevent tuberculosis; multiple types) X X
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