| In November 2019, the highly infectious coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 emerged
in Wuhan, China, and has since spread to almost all countries worldwide.
Since its emergence, the COVID-19 infection has led to significant public
health, economic and social problems. The current pandemic has inspired
researchers to make every effort to design and develop an effective
COVID-19 vaccine to provide sufficient protection against the virus and
control the infection. In December 2020, the Pfizer vaccine was the first
COVID-19 vaccine given Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), and
the second FDA so-approved vaccine was the Moderna mRNA-1273
vaccine, which was introduced a week later. Both Pfizer and Moderna
vaccines are mRNA-based vaccines, and are estimated to have an efficacy
rate of more than 94%. The aim of this article is to provide a review of the
attempts made to develop safe SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, highlighting potential challenges and concerns, such as disease enhancement, virus mutations, and public acceptance of the vaccine. |