COVID-19: Top US doctor Fauci cautiously optimistic over vaccine development by early 2021

America's top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said that he is cautiously optimistic over results from current clinical trials and possibility of developing a vaccine for COVID-19 by end of this year or early next year.

Fauci, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director, said that coronavirus will likely to continue to emerge, and global collaboration and transparency are critical to deal with future pandemics. " lessons we've learned from coronavirus is y have pandemic potential, y're likely to continue to emerge. Good public health measures are critical to controlling m.

“Global collaboration and transparency are critical if we are to get containment of this extraordinary assault on human population, a viral disease that spres rapidly and as a high degree of morbidity and mortality,” he said in his recorded remarks during an online session on ‘Confronting COVID-19 Through Invation and Research: Lessons Learned from Pandemic’.

event is part of a series of online dialogue by United Nations Acemic Impact (UNAI) dubbed '75 for UN75: 75 Minutes of Conversation' that brings toger acemics, researchers and students from around world.

Giving an overview of pandemic and efforts to develop a vaccine, Fauci said: “we've opted a strategic approach to getting multiple candidates and re are more than one candidate vaccine to be conducted in trials in a harmonised way so that we use standard endpoints, standard and single data and safety monitoring board as well as identical immulogical parameters that are measured so that you could bridge one study to ar.” re are a number of vaccine candidates alrey in  clinical trial and a few out of those candidates have completed phase 1/2 status, he said, ding that re are trials that will be going into phase three sometime at end of July and n ors will follow in months of August, September and October.

Fauci said “hopefully we'll be able to get some information, such as with this particular one representative vaccine… that we started here in January. Phase one looks good, very promising data on induction of neutralising antibody” and will go into trial at end of July”.

re are 5-7 candidates that are going into clinical trials at different sts, he said. Moderna coronavirus vaccine is showing promising results, "which makes me cautiously optimistic. Although you can never, ever predict with any certainty, wher a vaccine is going to be safe and effective.

“ early data on se trials have cautious optimism that we will be successful at least in developing a vaccine with some degree of efficacy by end of year, beginning of 2021,” he said.

Moderna said that it has completed enrollment of Phase 2 Study of its mRNA vaccine against COVID-19, ding that it has finalised Phase 3 study protocol based on feedback from US Food and Drug ministration (FDA). randomised, 1:1 placebo-controlled trial is expected to include approximately 30,000 participants… and is expected to be conducted in collaboration with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, subject to regulatory approval.

Moderna has completed manufacture of vaccine required to start Phase 3 study and company remains on track to be able to deliver approximately 500 million doses per year, and possibly up to 1 billion doses per year beginning in 2021 from company’s internal US manufacturing site and strategic collaborations, biotechlogy company ded.

According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, contagion has infected over 12 million people and killed more than 549,000 across world.

US is worst affected country with over 3 million cases and more than 1,32,000 deaths. COVID-19, which originated in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has also battered world ecomy with International Monetary Fund saying that global ecomy is bound to suffer a "severe recession". Scientists are racing against time to find a vaccine or medicine for its treatment.