Billion COVID Vaccine Doses Likely By 2021 End, Says Top US Health Expert

Washington: Top US infectious diseases official Anthony Fauci is hopeful that drugmakers will have a billion doses of coronavirus vaccines in the early part of next year.

U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said last month the U.S would have hundreds of millions of vaccine doses by early in 2021, reported NDTV.

Those goals are only possible because drugmakers have agreed to manufacture large supplies of their vaccines even before they know whether they work in order to save time, the report added.

“The federal government has put more than one egg in the basket,” Fauci said in a Reuters interview on Wednesday.

“We have a pretty comprehensive portfolio that’s going to subsequently be going into clinical trials. There might be an indication that at least one vaccine works and is safe by year end. I’m cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine that’s effective enough to get approved,” he said in the interview.