Washington says it will not pay what it owes to "global health"

The Trump administration asks states to prepare to distribute a vaccine against "Corona" in two months

The vaccines and additional supplies will be purchased and distributed by the federal government at no cost to the vaccine providers.

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The administration of President Donald Trump has urged the US states to prepare to distribute a possible vaccine for the Covid-19 epidemic by November 1, two days before the presidential elections, while an American official said that her country will not pay about $ 80 million of its dues to the World Health Organization, and will use the amount in Pay part of what she owes to the United Nations in New York.

In detail, Maxon Corp. in Dallas has entered into an agreement with the federal government and will require permits to set up distribution centers when the vaccine becomes available.

"The regular time required to obtain these permits is a major impediment to the success of this urgent public health program," said Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in a letter to states on Aug. 27.

"(CDC) urgently requests your assistance in expediting requests for the establishment of these distribution facilities," he added.

Redfield asked the states to consider waiving the requirements that would "prevent these facilities from operating at full capacity by November 1, 2020."

The CDC provided states with documents that provide details of the vaccine deployment plan, explaining that they will either be approved as licensed vaccines or under an emergency use permit.

It is possible that recipients will need a second "booster" dose of the vaccine a few weeks after receiving the first dose, according to the documents.

The documents indicated that "the vaccines and additional supplies will be purchased and distributed by the federal government without any cost to the vaccine providers."

Priority will be given to essential workers, national security personnel, the elderly, and members of vulnerable racial and ethnic groups, according to The New York Times.

There are three pharmaceutical companies ahead of Phase III clinical trials involving tens of thousands of participants: the first is AstraZeneca, which is partnering with the University of Oxford in England, the second is Moderna, which cooperates with the US National Institutes of Health, and the third is Pfizer, which is allied with Biontech.

Given the nature of the trials, it is difficult to predict when reliable results will be available.

Half of the participants in such trials receive an experimental vaccine, while the other half are given a placebo.

Under normal procedures, testers would have to wait, possibly for months, to see if there was a statistically significant difference in the incidence rate in the two groups.

But the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has raised the possibility of granting the vaccine expedited approval before the trials end.

The head of this agency, Stephen Hahn, told the Financial Times in an interview published last Sunday that the request for such exceptional approval must come from the vaccine developer.

The FDA has faced mounting criticism from the medical community that it is under political pressure from President Donald Trump who has been pushing hard for a vaccine, saying there must be a vaccine ready before the election.

In March, the same administration granted urgent permission to use hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 after Trump had repeatedly praised its use, but the permit had to be withdrawn in June after serious side effects emerged for this drug.

Finally, Hahn gave an optimistic assessment during a press conference with Trump of the effectiveness of convalescent plasma against the virus.

He said the technique could save 35 out of 100 patients, but experts pointed out that the most likely number is five in 100.

Award-winning epidemiologist Laurie Garrett wrote on Twitter: “This means that comprehensive vaccination at the national level may begin in 59 days. Is it possible that any vaccine for Covid-19 has completed the third phase of clinical trials to prove that it is safe? And effective and subject to full scientific review by the (FDA) in 59 days? ”

"As far as I know, none of the US vaccines against Covid-19 has even finished registering test sites for Phase III trials," she added.

Expediting this procedure to expire within 59 days is dangerous ».

Despite this, Hahn insisted that he does not act under pressure from Trump, stressing that any approval of the vaccine would be "a decision related to science, medicine and data."

The director of the American Institute of Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, said on several occasions that the vaccine should be ready between the end of 2020 and the first half of 2021. He added, “I think that by the end of this year we will feel comfortable because we will have a safe and effective vaccine.”

The United States has recorded more than six million injuries, equivalent to a quarter of the number recorded in the world, and 185,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

This comes at a time when the United States intends to leave the World Health Organization, based in Geneva, on July 6, 2021, after President Donald Trump accused it, during the outbreak of the pandemic, that it had become a puppet of China.

The organization rejected Trump's accusations.

A WHO spokeswoman said yesterday, in an e-mail response to a request for comment, “Please see our previous statements in which we expressed our regret over the US decision to withdraw.

We are waiting for any new details, and we will consider them carefully. ”

Trump was required by a joint resolution of the US Congress in 1948 to inform the United States of withdrawing from the World Health Organization a year before the scheduled date, and he is required to pay Washington’s obligations to the organization in the current fiscal year.

The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, Narissa Cook, said that the United States currently owes the WHO about $ 18 million for the fiscal year 2019 and about $ 62 million for the fiscal year 2020.

"These two sums will go to the United Nations instead," she added, to meet Washington's obligations to the international organization in New York.

Lawrence Justin, a professor at Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC, wrote on Twitter that directing the World Health Organization's funds to another destination was "unethical and absolutely illegal."

He said that the United States must fulfill all of its financial obligations, adding, "Trump is acting alone without Congress and in violation of the law."

Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline start a trial of a protein vaccine

The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and its British counterpart GlaxoSmithKline have started a clinical trial to test a protein vaccine for Covid-19, as part of the efforts of pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments for the pandemic.

The two companies said, in a joint statement yesterday, that they have begun the first phase of a two-stage test of the vaccine, which they hope to roll out worldwide.

The vaccine uses technology Sanofi uses to produce the seasonal flu vaccine and GlaxoSmithKline technology.

Pharmaceutical companies and governments are working around the world to develop treatments for the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 861,000 people and disrupted economic activity.

Sanofi and Glaxo said they expect the first results of the vaccine by December 2020, and if the results are positive, they will plan to seek approval from the relevant authorities for the vaccine in the first half of 2021.

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