US President Trump is looking into offering a coronavirus vaccine free of charge
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was considering making a vaccine for the coronavirus available for free.
“We’re looking at that, actually,” he said in response to a reporter’s question at a press conference in the White House.
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He said that he was hoping there would be a COVID-19 vaccine available before the end of the year and that the government had narrowed down a list of potential vaccines to 14 options.
Moncef Slaoui, the former head of Glaxo’s vaccines division who Trump recently put in charge of the national effort to find a coronavirus vaccine, said recent data made him “feel more confident” that a vaccine will be available by the end of 2020.
“I have very recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine and this data made me feel even more confident that we will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020,” Slaoui said.
Recent data "made me feel even more confident" that a vaccine will be available by the end of 2020, Dr. Moncef Slaoui says. pic.twitter.com/ToAVI5ksHw
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 15, 2020
Trump also announced that the US will donate ventilators to India and said the two countries were cooperating on vaccine development.
Operation Warp Speed is "a massive scientific, industrial, and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project." pic.twitter.com/dkfU3vPnnA
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 15, 2020
- With Reuters
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