US: Anthony Fauci says unlikely to use coronavirus vaccines from Russia and China

US top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has raised concerns over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines produced in Russia and China adding that they might not be testing their vaccines accurately. More than six months have been passed since COVID-19 was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization, triggering a race to develop its vaccine.

While several Chinese and Russian companies are now claiming to have developed a vaccine, Swedish-British brand AstraZeneca is currently in its third phase of the vaccine trial. Meanwhile, Putin lead government has announced that it was targeting a date in September to roll out coronavirus vaccine. However, Fauci said it was unlikely that the US would use any of the vaccines developed by a country where regulatory systems are far more opaque than they are in the West. Addressing the Congress, he said that he hoped those countries were testing the vaccine before making claims and distributing it.

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 "I do hope that the Chinese and the Russians are actually testing the vaccine before they are administering the vaccine to anyone. Claims of having a vaccine ready to distribute before you do testing, I think, is problematic, at best," he told a US Congressional hearing on July 31. 

Operation warp speed

The Trump administration has previously announced that it would pay $2.1 billion to pharma giants GSK and Sanofi in order to aid them in developing a vaccine as a part of its “operation warp speed”.Earlier this week, Donald Trump said his country may provide a vaccine for novel coronavirus to other countries when it is ready. The American leader has previously expressed the possibility of a vaccine before the end of 2020. Speaking at a press briefing on July 28, Trump said that when they have a vaccine, it will be discharged and taken care of.

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