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LONDON (AP) – America’s top infectious disease expert has apologized for suggesting UK authorities rush approval of a COVID-19 vaccine, saying he has “great faith” in regulators from the country.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had sparked controversy with a previous interview in which he said UK regulators had not acted “as carefully” as the US Food and Drug Administration .
Fauci said Thursday evening that he intended to say that US officials were doing things differently than their UK counterparts, not better, but his comments were not worded correctly.
“I have great faith in both the scientific community and the regulatory community in the UK, and anyone who has known me and my relationship to this for decades, you know that is the case,” said Fauci. at the BBC.
Britain on Wednesday became the first Western country to allow widespread use of a COVID-19 vaccine when regulators gave emergency approval to a product made by US drug maker Pfizer and German company BioNTech . Critics have suggested that UK regulators have focused on speed rather than thoroughness when reviewing data on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.
Fauci rejected this idea.
The FDA must act more slowly due to the high degree of vaccine skepticism in the United States, Fauci said. For this reason, US regulators are reviewing all raw data from Pfizer and BioNTech “in a way that could not have been done faster,” he said.
It will take at least another week for the FDA to complete its review, but the United States and Britain will eventually end up in one place, Fauci said.
“In the end, it will be safe, it will be effective,” he says. “People in the UK are going to get it, and they’re going to do very well, and people in the US are going to get it, and we’re going to do very well.”
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