Head of Operation Warp Speed: Immunize US population against COVID by 2021

Top health experts working to educate the public about the complex vaccine approval and distribution process joined in a Tuesday webinar in which the head of Operation Warp Speed said its goal is to immunize the American population against COVID-19 by 2021.

“Our mission is to deliver approved vaccines to the American people before the end of the year, and in enough quantities so as to immunize the U.S. population potentially by 2021 or slightly later,” said Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser of Operation Warp Speed, the federal public-private partnership aimed at creating a vaccine.

Slaoui said the process of stockpiling millions of vaccine doses already has begun, and in November tens of millions of doses of each of the eight Operation Warp Speed vaccine candidates will be stockpiled.

The candidates include those made by Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Pfizer, Novavax and two more that have not yet been named as they are not yet proven effective, according to Slaoui.

The virtual Johns Hopkins University and University of Washington symposium dug into preserving the scientific integrity of the coronavirus vaccine development.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, who joined the webinar, said research networks built decades ago and proven effective are the same ones that are guiding current coronavirus vaccine research.

“We have a clinical research apparatus that has performed scientifically sound and ethically sound research in the context of an ongoing outbreak,” Fauci said.

He added, “The randomized clinical trials are ethical and appropriate and among the most efficient and reliable way to determine safety and efficacy.”

Those sound research networks coupled with strong community engagement and manufacturing at a large scale are what will make a COVID-19 vaccine a success, experts said during the symposium.

“I’m amazed, actually, to just take a step back and realize that the sequence of this virus was described on Jan. 23, 2020, which is less than 10 months ago, and we’re sitting here talking about programs in phase three trials,” Slaoui said.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/30AJj4r