Washington (AFP)
Immunologist Anthony Fauci said Thursday that he saw Joe Biden, the future US president, as a man "very attentive to science", and gave the administration of Donald Trump the "credit" of the success of the development of vaccines against Covid-19, in an interview with AFP on Thursday.
Member of the current White House crisis unit against the coronavirus pandemic and appointed as senior advisor on the matter by Mr. Biden, Dr. Fauci considered that the latter was "very attentive to science, data and scientific evidence "and that its future administration would be" very attached to following the science ".
"This is something President-elect Biden was doing when I knew him during the Obama administration," said the man who worked with the former senator from Delaware to fight Ebola and the H1N1 flu.
"I imagine that the plan (to fight the pandemic), as it is being developed by the new government, will be very rooted in science," he added.
Anthony Fauci, a highly respected medical figure, has at times been targeted by outgoing President Donald Trump, who is also widely criticized for his management of the pandemic in the United States, minimizing its dangerousness and then mocking health measures to fight against its spread.
The director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Allergies (NIAID) nevertheless stressed to AFP the success of Operation Warp Speed to develop vaccines, to be credited to the Trump administration.
"Operation Warp Speed was successful and I am sure that we will continue on this path. (...) To have a vaccine ready to be distributed less than a year after the identification of the virus is unprecedented speed, "said Dr Fauci.
Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine is expected to be authorized quickly in the United States, having already received the green light in the United Kingdom, Canada, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
A second vaccine, developed by Moderna and Dr. Fauci's institute, could be approved in the United States next week.
For the immunologist, the challenge that health authorities will now have to face is the mistrust that these vaccines developed in record time inspire some Americans, so that 70 to 75% of them receive a vaccine, thus making it possible to reach collective immunity.
"We have to speak to the people, explain to people how the process of developing these vaccines has been reliable and scientific, and that they are safe and very effective," said Anthony Fauci.
Decisions concerning these vaccines are granted by "independent bodies, without political or other influence. It is the truth and these are the facts", he insisted, calling for this message to be communicated "not only to the United States. but all over the world ".
© 2020 AFP