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 The timing of a vaccine has taken on political importance as U.S.
President Donald Trump seeks re-election in November, after
committing billions of federal dollars to develop a vaccine to
prevent COVID-19, which has killed more than 180,000 Americans.
"For the purpose of initial planning, CDC provided states with
certain planning assumptions as they work on state specific plans
for vaccine distribution, including possibly having limited
quantities of vaccines in October and November," a CDC spokeswoman
told Reuters.
The New York Times had earlier reported that the CDC had contacted
officials in all 50 states and five large cities with the planning
information.
The country's top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci earlier on
Wednesday said on MSNBC that based on the patient enrollment rate in
COVID-19 vaccine trials underway, there could be enough clinical
data to know by November or December that one of the vaccines is
safe and effective.
The documents
https://int.nyt.com/data/
documenttools/covid-19-vax-planning-assumptions-8-27-2020-final/6fc8a9ec0c3e5817/full.pdf
put online by the New York Times showed the CDC is preparing for one
or two vaccines for COVID-19 to be available in limited quantities
as soon as late October.
The vaccines would be made available free of cost first to high-risk
groups including healthcare workers, national security personnel,
and nursing home residents and staff, the agency said in the
documents.
Regulators around the world have repeatedly said development speed
will not compromise vaccine safety, as quicker results would stem
from conducting parallel trials that are usually done in sequence.
But such reassurances have not convinced everyone.
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Preliminary results of a survey conducted over the last three months in 19
countries showed that only about 70% of British and U.S. respondents would take
a COVID-19 vaccine if available, Scott Ratzan, co-leader of a group called
Business Partners to Convince, told Reuters in August.
Drug developers including Moderna Inc <MRNA.O>, AstraZeneca Plc <AZN.L> and
Pfizer Inc <PFE.N> are leading the race to develop a safe and effective vaccine
for the respiratory illness.
The CDC documents describe two vaccine candidates that must be stored at
temperatures of minus 70 and minus 20 degrees Celsius. Those storage
requirements match profiles of candidates from Pfizer and Moderna.
Last month, the U.S. health department said the CDC was executing an existing
contract option with McKesson Corp <MCK.N> to support potential vaccine
distribution.
CDC Director Robert Redfield has asked state governors to expedite McKesson's
requests for building vaccine distribution centers and to consider waiving
requirements that would stop them from becoming fully operational by Nov. 1,
according to a recent letter obtained by Reuters.
(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru and Deena Beasley in Los Angeles;
Editing by Maju Samuel, Tom Brown and Subhranshu Sahu)
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