On Monday, US President Donald Trump announced that AstraZeneca developed COVID-19 vaccine has entered Phase 3 clinical trials in the country and soon it will be finalised for approval.
In a press conference, Trump said, “I am pleased to announce that AstraZeneca’s vaccine has reached Phase 3 clinical trials and has joined various vaccines that are very close to the end. In the United States, we are doing things that people thought were not possible”.
He commented that the process could have lasted for years but it is his government’s administration that it is happening merely in months.
AstraZeneca said that its vaccine, developed by researchers at Oxford University will conduct the phase 3 clinical trials with approximately 30,000 adult participants at selected 80 sites in the US.
In a statement, AstraZeneca said, “Trial centres across the US are recruiting up to 30,000 adults aged 18 years or over from diverse racial, ethnic and geographic groups who are healthy or have stable underlying medical conditions, including those living with HIV, and who are at increased risk of infection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”
The U.S administration has initiated a public-private partnership known as Operation Warp Speed whose objective is to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine to people latest by January 2021. And the phase 3 clinical trial of AstraZeneca vaccine will be conducted under this operation.
Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. are the other two COVID-19 Vaccines that are currently under phase 3 clinical trials.