Two leading voices on health issues in the US are skeptical about Russian President Valdimir Putin’s claim that his country was the first to develop a safe and effective vaccine for coronavirus. Putin’s remarks on Tuesday raised immediate doubts about the science and security behind the proposed performance.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday that he hopes Moscow “has actually proven conclusively that the vaccine is safe and effective. I seriously doubt they did.”
Fauci admitted that the US is working on “half a dozen or more faxes. So if we want to take the opportunity to hurt a lot of people or give them something that doesn’t work, we could start doing this, you know, next week.” if we wanted to. But that’s not how it works. “
Fauci made the remarks during a keynote interview for Stopping Pandemics, an exclusive event due to air August 13 via National Geographic.
Separately, U.S. Secretary of Health Alex Azar said during a visit to Taiwan on Wednesday that the pressure to develop a COVID-19 vaccine “is not a race to be first.”
Azar said the US combines the powers of its government, economy and biopharmaceutical industry to “deliver as quickly as possible for the benefit of the citizens of the United States, but also for the people of the world, safe and effective vaccines. . ”
Chiang Ying-ying / AP
He said the US has secured an advanced production contract for a fax machine being developed by the company Moderna and has supply agreements with five other companies that have fax machines in the works.
He pointed out that four of the six companies under contract have reported test results showing that they produce more antibodies to the virus than people who have survived COVID-19, without serious side effects.
Azar said two vaccine candidates from two companies have entered the third phase of trials, while the Russian vaccine is just starting at that stage without any information being revealed.
He said the U.S. process should enable the production of a “gold standard, safe and effective vaccine” available in the tens of millions of doses by the end of the year.
But Russian Public Health Minister Mikhail said on Wednesday that allegations that Russia’s vaccine was unsafe were unfounded and stemmed from competition, the Russian news agency Interfax reported, according to Reuters news agency.
And a Chinese official fired on Wednesday in Azar for visiting Taiwan amid an ongoing pandemic at home, accusing him of pursuing policies for the lives of the American people.
The remarks came a day after Azar accused China of not warning the rest of the world about the coronavirus.
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