Coronavirus vaccine: Dr Fauci ‘cautiously optimistic’ jab is possible this year

A safe and effective vaccine may not immediately be available to all Americans and would be distributed in phases throughout 2021

Dr Anthony Fauci said today that he is “cautiously optimistic” of an effective coronavirus vaccine being available by the end of the year, but that it wouldn’t be widely available to all Americans until 2021.

Testifying before a House subcommittee investigation of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, the infectious diseases expert said he was confident that the vaccine being developed by Moderna would be successful as soon as autumn.

"We hope that by the time we get into late fall and early winter, we will have in fact a vaccine that we can say that would be safe and effective. One can never guarantee the safety or effectiveness unless you do the trial, but we are cautiously optimistic this will be successful," Mr Fauci said.

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is a key member of the White House’s coronavirus taskforce, and his agency is working with biotech company Moderna on a potential vaccine that went into phase-three clinical trials on Monday. The first patient to receive the jab was in Savannah, Georgia.

It is one of at least 25 vaccines in clinical trials around the world and is the sixth to enter phase three, according to a World Health Organisation review released on Friday.

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Mr Fauci said three separate platforms are being pursued with government help, including the Moderna trial that began on 27 July and that would continue for several months. It is expected to include 30,000 volunteers at almost 100 research locations across the country, according to Moderna.

Pfizer and BioNTech have also announced the start of phase two and three studies of coronavirus vaccines, but Mr Fauci used his opening remarks on Friday to express the most hope towards the version being developed in partnership with the National Institute of Health.

“Because in the early studies with humans, the phase one study, it clearly showed that individuals who are vaccinated mounted a neutralising antibody response that was at least comparable and in many respects better than what we see in convalescent serum from individuals who have recovered from Covid-19,” Mr Fauci added.

While Mr Fauci couldn’t guarantee the safety or effectiveness until the trial, he said that the strategic approach to Covid-19 vaccine research and development they put in place months ago would speed testing of potential candidates.

“The reason we did this is because there are multiple candidate vaccines that are moving along at a very rapid pace, and we wanted to make sure that they learned from each other, so we made standardised protocols, common data and safety and monitoring boards, common primary and secondary endpoints, and common individual laboratory tests,” he said.

When a safe and effective vaccine is available, Mr Fauci said it may not immediately be available to everyone and would need to be distributed to Americans in phases throughout 2021.

“I don’t think that we’ll have everybody getting it immediately in the beginning. It probably will be phased in. And that’s the reason why we have the committees to do the prioritisation of who should get it first,” he told lawmakers.

“But ultimately, within a reasonable period of time, the plans now allow for any American who needs a vaccine to get it within the year 2021.”