Trump promises a Covid-19 vaccine 'for all Americans' by April 2021
US President Donald Trump has promised to make enough Covid-19 vaccines for 330 million Americans by next April, saying the first doses will be distributed immediately after approval later this year.
We will have manufactured at least 100 million doses of vaccines before the end of the year. And probably much more than that. Hundreds of millions of doses will be available each month and we hope to have enough vaccines for all Americans by April, said the president at the White House.
Trump reiterated his optimism about the outcome of ongoing clinical trials of experimental vaccines, although he did not specify which manufacturers could deliver those volumes.
Two companies, Moderna and Pfizer, are in phase 3 clinical trials of their experimental vaccines. The first awaits the results in November and the second, in October.
The two have signed contracts with the US government to deliver hundreds of millions of doses, and US health officials have begun preparations to be able to store and apply the first doses beginning in October, within 24 hours of a Possible authorization from the Drug Agency (FDA) .
Each vaccine would be injected in two doses three to four weeks apart.
The date of availability of a US vaccine is a campaign issue for the November 3 presidential election. Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who leads in the polls, said he does not trust Trump to ensure the integrity of the scientific approval process for the immunization.
The chief scientist of the White House team for vaccine production, Moncef Slaoui, told NPR radio on Sept. 3 that he expected a dose volume sufficient to vaccinate between 20 and 25 million people by the end of the year.
And the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, said this week that the vaccine would probably not be available to most Americans until the second or third quarter of 2021.
Trump reiterated his optimism about the outcome of ongoing clinical trials of experimental vaccines, although he did not specify which manufacturers could deliver those volumes.
Two companies, Moderna and Pfizer, are in phase 3 clinical trials of their experimental vaccines. The first awaits the results in November and the second, in October.
The two have signed contracts with the US government to deliver hundreds of millions of doses, and US health officials have begun preparations to be able to store and apply the first doses beginning in October, within 24 hours of a Possible authorization from the Drug Agency (FDA) .
Each vaccine would be injected in two doses three to four weeks apart.
The date of availability of a US vaccine is a campaign issue for the November 3 presidential election. Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who leads in the polls, said he does not trust Trump to ensure the integrity of the scientific approval process for the immunization.
The chief scientist of the White House team for vaccine production, Moncef Slaoui, told NPR radio on Sept. 3 that he expected a dose volume sufficient to vaccinate between 20 and 25 million people by the end of the year.
And the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, said this week that the vaccine would probably not be available to most Americans until the second or third quarter of 2021.
