The US health secretary, Alex Azar, said on Tuesday morning that America hopes to have a coronavirus vaccine approved by December and tamped down Russia’s celebrations over unveiling its own vaccine after rapid development.
“The point is not to be first,” Azar said. “The point is to have a vaccine that is safe and effective for the American people and the people of the world.”
Azar said on Tuesday that: “We need transparent data, it’s got to be phase 3 data that shows that the vaccine is safe and effective and that’s what President Trump is leading with Operation Warp Speed.”
The project is the public-private partnership that is coordinating vaccine trials in the US. Azar told ABC’s Good Morning America show that six vaccines were in development and “we believe that we are on track towards having tens of millions of doses by December of FDA [Food and Drug Administration] gold-standard and hundreds of millions as we go into the new year”.
Azar was challenged by ABC on reports from analysts looking at the work of Moderna, one of the US companies with a vaccine in phase 3 trials, and concluding that trials will not show results until early 2021.
Azar said it depended on the speed with which people could be enrolled for the ongoing trials.
Reuters contributed reporting
