December 3rd – Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said on Wednesday (February) that the agency is still recruiting experimentalists for a coronavirus vaccine.
Collins said in an interview with CNN the same day that the U.S. government still needs people to participate in these vaccine trials. Collins said that even if two vaccines are about to obtain emergency use authorization from the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), four more vaccines are still under development. Collins said that the National Institutes of Health is counting on volunteers who he calls “heroes” to participate in the experiment. He said that the more people participated in the trial, “the more the better, because the earlier we can bring these vaccines to people for vaccination”.
According to earlier reports, Pfizer and Modena have applied for FDA emergency use authorization for their respective coronavirus vaccines, and both vaccines can be distributed this month. “While we know that clinical trial data for both vaccines are very good, we don’t have any experience within a year or two years of vaccination, we can only watch as we go,” said Sloe, chief scientific adviser to the Trump administration’s vaccine program. Both the FDA and the CDC have reportedly established tracking systems to assess the long-term effects of vaccines.
The Trump administration has signed contracts with Pfizer and Modena to purchase 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccine respectively. According to the plan, 40 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and Modena in the United States will be injected to U.S. residents in stages in December. Everyone will be vaccinated by April next year.
