Dr Antony Fauci claims US may not need AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine this year because it has enough domestic shots – but doesn’t rule out using ‘really quite good’ UK jab in future outbreaks
Dr Anthony Fauci has described the AstraZeneca vaccine as a ‘good’ jab but revealed the US might not need to use it.
America’s top coronavirus expert said his country already has enough domestic vaccines on order to inoculate all 330million people in the US.
Officials across the Atlantic have already given at least one dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna jab to 120million people and have fully vaccinated 73million.
Another made by US pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson is also due to get a mass rollout in the coming weeks after securing approval from the FDA.
The abundance of American vaccines has meant Washington will likely not need to rely on foreign jabs this year, but Dr Fauci has not ruled out turning to AstraZeneca if there are future Covid outbreaks.
Dr Fauci – who has previously been critical of the way AstraZeneca presented data from its vaccine trials and slammed the British medical regulator for ‘rushing’ jabs through approval – said the UK vaccine was ‘really quite good’.
Referring to the jab’s link to extremely rare blood clots in Europe, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: ‘I think the AstraZeneca vaccine, from a standpoint of efficacy, is a good vaccine.
‘And if the safety issue gets straightened out in the European Union – which I understand is still in a bit of controversy about how to use it and when to use and what age groups to use it – the efficacy of that vaccine is really quite good.
Dr Anthony Fauci has described the AstraZeneca vaccine as a ‘good’ jab but revealed the US might not need to use it because it has so many domestic vaccines already
He added: ‘The way the United States has made contractual relationships with a number of companies, we clearly have enough vaccine – or will get enough vaccine – that does not include AstraZeneca, which would be enough quantitatively to vaccinate everybody in the United States.
‘Whether or not we ever use AZ is unclear but it looks right now at this point in time that we will not need it.
‘It is not a negative indictment of AZ – it just possible that, given the supply we have from other companies, that we may not need to use an AZ vaccine.’
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