NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with Moncef Slaoui, primary advisor for the coronavirus vaccine development program, Operation Lightning speed, about the status of vaccines in the U.S.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Back in the spring, the Trump administration wagered huge on a plan to fast-track a coronavirus vaccine.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s called Operation Terminal velocity. That implies big, and it suggests quick – a huge clinical, commercial and logistical venture unlike anything our country has seen given that the Manhattan Task.
KELLY: That’s the president speaking on May15 The CDC is informing states to get ready, that a possible vaccine might be all set to distribute as soon as late October.
Dr. Slaoui, welcome to ALL THINGS THOUGHT ABOUT.
MONCEF SLAOUI: Thank you.
KELLY: How real is that timing? Late October would be the end of next month.
SLAOUI: Well, it’s a matter of planning, and the operation has been carrying out, I have to say, very, really well up to now, even much better than I was hoping.
KELLY: You’re saying it is possible but very unlikely that there will be any type of vaccine all set to disperse by the end of October, start of November. Am I hearing that right?
SLAOUI: Yes, it’s possibility but very unlikely.
KELLY: OK. It’s two vaccines that, I comprehend, the CDC is putting forward as 2 candidates – Vaccine A, Vaccine B. These are the items being developed by – one by Pfizer, one by Moderna. Can you validate that?
SLAOUI: Yes.
KELLY: OK.
SLAOUI: So the vaccines would not be presented before the medical trials are finished. The trials will be finished when an independent data security tracking board looks into the data, and they are, obviously, separate from the operation, from the NIH, from the federal government, from everybody involved. And if the data shows statistical significance for the ideal endpoint of illness in the ideal populations, then we can send an emergency usage authorization. So the requirements are extremely high, and there is no intent to file before a presentation of effectiveness and safety in the stage three trials.
KELLY: Prior to you understand that it works and it is safe. I imply, you comprehend why there are all these concerns about the timing …
SLAOUI: Yes.
KELLY: … Which this start of November or late October date being floated at all – lots of people will ask, is this politics? Is this a determined push to attempt to rush some excellent news – a vaccine, hallelujah, we’re saved – to get that out there ideal before the election? Let me let you just take that on straight. Is this about politics?
SLAOUI: I can inform you that hundreds of individuals that belong to the operations are here – including myself, obviously – are here, 100%, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to make a vaccine offered for the American populations and for the world because we understand that between a thousand and now 892 individuals are dead every day.
KELLY: Yeah.
SLAOUI: And every day that we can be faster, we try to be faster. There is – for us, there is absolutely nothing to do with politics, and many of us might or may not be supportive of this administration. It’s irrelevant, honestly.
KELLY: You get the suspicion, though, that this November 1 date, 2 days before the election, has actually unexpectedly turned up.
SLAOUI: However I believe – honestly, I believe – I get the point. And I do think there is a possibility that the medical trials – albeit really low, as I said before, incredibly low – however there is a possibility that the trials read out before the end of October.
KELLY: Dr. Slaoui, how far are we – whatever may occur at the end of October, start of November – how far are we from the supreme goal, which is a vaccine that, A, works, B, is safe and, C, is extensively available, that will get us back to normal, whatever that might look like?
SLAOUI: So I believe – I firmly think that we will have a vaccine offered prior to the end of the year, and it will be readily available in amounts that can immunize topics with health at the highest risk, which implies the extremely old individuals – I would state 70 years old and older – and possibly individuals that are highly exposed in the first line.
KELLY: Middle of 2021.
SLAOUI: Yes.
KELLY: That feels a long way away.
SLAOUI: Yes. On the other hand, on the scale of how long it takes to make vaccines, this is incredibly quick.
KELLY: Right.
SLAOUI: We actually moved from one to the other within a period of a day. And at the very same time, we purchased producing at high danger. And this is really where the U.S. government and taxpayer cash has been invested, is to produce at risk.
Now, in October or November or December or whenever we end up accomplishing medical effectiveness based on the research studies that are continuous, we might discover that the vaccine is not efficacious, and we have to throw those vaccine dosages. Or we may find that the vaccine is efficacious, and if that’s the case, we will have vaccine dosages.
KELLY: Well, Dr. Slaoui, thank you quite for your time. We appreciate it.
SLAOUI: Thank you. You’re really welcome.
KELLY: Dr. Moncef Slaoui – he is the chief scientific adviser to Operation Terminal velocity.
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