Updated: October 2, 2020 9:03:24 am
President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a press conference in the James Brady Press Conference Room of the White House, Friday, Sept. 18, 2020, in Washington, as Army General Gustave Perna, who leads Operation, watches. Warp Speed. (AP Photo / Alex Brandon)
Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker: Operation Warp Speed, an initiative of the US government to accelerate the development and access of a coronavirus vaccine for its citizens, is being led primarily by military leaders, including four generals, revealed STAT, a news website. American that focuses on health-related information.
STAT said it had obtained an org chart from Operation Warp Speed that, for the first time, has revealed the key people who are running the initiative. The graph, according to the website, shows a large involvement of the US military in the search for an early vaccine.
He said nearly 60 military officers, including at least four generals, were named on the chart, “many of whom have never worked in health care or vaccine development.” Only 29 of the 90 ‘leaders’ on the organization chart did not work for the US Department of Defense.
The Defense Department’s involvement in Operation Warp Speed is no secret. It is mentioned in a fact sheet on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) website. The fact sheet also lists General Gustave Perna as the director of operations for Operation Warp Speed.
But STAT said that the rest of the organization’s structure, which showed the degree of military involvement in the initiative, had so far not been put into the public domain.
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STAT quoted Paul Mango, deputy chief of staff for policy at HHS, as saying that the military’s involvement was sorting out the logistical elements to make the vaccine available to all, as health officials had never before faced a challenge. such a complex logistical challenge.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump, during his debate with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said that the US military would participate in the distribution of vaccines and deliver 200,000 vaccines in one day.
Operation Warp Speed was launched in May of this year with the goal of making 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine available to US citizens starting in January of next year. It hopes to achieve this by accelerating the development, manufacture and distribution of vaccines.
It has already provided about $ 10 billion in funding to six of the major vaccine candidates, and in return, secured supplies of at least 800 million doses of these yet-to-develop vaccines.
Moderna says her vaccine won’t be ready until March next year
American pharmaceutical company Moderna has said that its coronavirus vaccine candidate would not be ready for public use until the spring of next year, which is late March, according to a report in the Financial Times newspaper.
“I think a late first quarter and early second quarter approval is a reasonable timeframe, based on what we know about our vaccine,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Moderna is one of four candidate vaccines currently in phase 3 trials in the United States.
He is also among the six candidates who have been funded by Operation Warp Speed. The spring timeline would put Moderna at the bottom of the queue of the four candidates expected to be the first to receive the vaccine, the others being Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
Pfizer has the most ambitious timeline at the moment. The company has said it hopes to know how effective its vaccine will be by the end of October, and if the results were satisfactory, it would immediately seek emergency clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration. AstraZeneca and Johnson are expected to & Johnson are ready with their vaccinations early next year.
FDA Expands AstraZeneca Vaccine Safety Investigation: Reuters
The US Food and Drug Administration has decided to delve into the safety record of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the worldwide clinical trials of which had to be halted last month after the onset of a serious illness in one of the participants of the trial in the UK.
Trials have since resumed in all other locations, including India, but not the United States, which has ordered an investigation into the incident. On Thursday, Reuters reported that the FDA’s ongoing investigation had been expanded to evaluate data from previous trials of similar vaccines developed by the same scientists.
The expanded research could further delay the schedule for the vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca, which it expects to be available in the US market early next year.
AstraZeneca is among the vaccines supported by US Operation Warp Speed, which has provided $ 1.2 billion to accelerate development. In return, the US has secured insured supplies of 300 million doses of this vaccine, when ready.
Search for the coronavirus vaccine: the story so far
As of October 1:
- 192 candidate vaccines in clinical or preclinical trials
- 41 of them in clinical trials
- Ten in final stages, phase III human trials
- At least eight candidate vaccines are under development in India. Two of them have entered phase II trials after completing phase I.
The most commented:
* AstraZeneca / University of Oxford
* Modern
* Pfizer / BioNTech
* Johnson and Johnson
* Sanofi / GlaxoSmithKline
* Novavax
* Russian vaccine, developed by Gamaleya Insttiute in Moscow
* Three Chinese vaccines that have been approved for use in China without the completion of phase 3 trials. One of them has received authorization for emergency use in the UAE.
(Source: WHO Coronavirus Vaccine Overview of September 30, 2020)
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