Washington (AFP)

If an experimental vaccine against the new coronavirus proves its worth, it will be distributed free to Americans, Donald Trump's administration said Thursday, reiterating that the authorization process would be carried out with the greatest scientific rigor.

"We hope that every American will not only have access to a free vaccine distributed in various sites, but that they will also have nothing to pay for the administration of the vaccine," said Paul Mango, senior official in the Ministry of Health. Health, during a conference call with journalists.

Washington has invested more than $ 10 billion in six vaccine projects and signed contracts guaranteeing the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses if clinical trials are successful and lead to clearance by the United States Medicines Agency (FDA).

The doses themselves will be paid for by the US government. Doctors or clinics who will inject people with the vaccine will have to be paid, but those costs should be largely covered by private insurers and public programs like Medicare, including for people without insurance, according to Paul Mango, who said that "most" of the private insurers agreed not to charge out-of-pocket expenses.

But the American health system being split between public and private insurers, and prices being free, 100% reimbursement for patients will depend on negotiations between multiple players.

"We are on track to deliver hundreds of millions of doses by January 2021", also insisted Paul Mango.

Three months will follow to distribute 300 million doses to Americans, according to Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"I am cautiously optimistic that at least one of these (of the six experimental vaccines) will be proven safe and effective by the end of the year," he also said.

The question agitating pundits and Democratic opposition to Donald Trump is whether the FDA clearance process will be rushed under pressure from the White House, as the president has repeatedly said he hopes for clearance by presidential election of November 3.

"We have not reduced the regulatory rigor with which we will assess and, I hope, authorize vaccines," said Paul Mango.

The counterexample is the vaccine approved by Russia this week, even before the start of the last phase of clinical trials, the phase where the experimental vaccine is injected into tens of thousands of volunteers to verify its effectiveness and safety. .

"I really doubt" that the Russians have "definitively proven that the vaccine is safe and effective," Anthony Fauci commented separately on Thursday during a National Geographic panel online.

Francis Collins compared the Russian decision to give the green light to the vaccine, Sputnik V, to "Russian roulette".

© 2020 AFP