Dr. Michael Ryan is a former trauma surgeon and epidemiologist specializing in infectious disease and public health who heads WHO's Health Emergencies Program as its Executive-Director.
Dr. Mike Ryan, Head of WHO’s emergencies program, said that even though researchers across the world are making “good progress” in developing vaccines against COVID-19, with a handful in late-stage trials, their first use cannot be expected until early 2021.
Dr. Ryan said that the World Health Organization (WHO) is working to ensure fair vaccine distribution, but in the meantime, it is key to suppress the virus’s spread, said, as daily new cases around the globe are at near-record levels.
“We’re making good progress,” Dr. Ryan said, remarking that several vaccines were now in phase 3 trials and none had failed, so far, in terms of safety or ability to generate an immune response.
“Realistically it is going to be the first part of next year before we start seeing people getting vaccinated,” he told a public event on social media.
WHO was working to expand access to potential vaccines and to help scale-up production capacity, Ryan said.
“And we need to be fair about this because this is a global good. Vaccines for this pandemic are not for the wealthy, they are not for the poor, they are for everybody,” he said.
Dr. Ryan also cautioned schools to be careful about re-opening until community transmission of COVID-19 is under control. The debate in the United States over restarting education has intensified, even as the pandemic flares up in dozens of states.
“We have to do everything possible to bring our children back to school, and the most effective thing we can do is to stop the disease in our community,” he said. “Because if you control the disease in the community, you can open the schools.”
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