AstraZeneca is the third Western vaccine manufacturer that has presented its phase 3 results, after Pfizer and Moderna, whose vaccines showed a 95 and 94.5 percent effectiveness rate, respectively. Canadian health authorities are now examining vaccine candidates from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, Health Minister Patty Hajdu told national media on Monday, and if a vaccine candidate meets the requirements, Canada's health department can issue emergency approvals.
"I am going to be briefed no later than tomorrow morning by the company", Fauci said during an online interview with The Washington Post.
Earlier on Monday, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford said the candidate coronavirus vaccine had shown an average of 70 percent efficacy in the trials, although one dosing regimen had shown to be 90 percent effective.
"To have a 90 percent efficacy in one of the components... that's good news. What it tells us now is that it is the third vaccine that we have with a very high degree of efficacy which bodes well for vaccinology in general in the context of COVID-19", Fauci said.
Fauci added that it is important to have multiple highly effective vaccine candidates so that "these companies can start pumping out vaccine doses not only for the United States, but for the entire world".
In August, Russia became the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine, the Sputnik V. The vaccine is currently going through phase 3 trials in Russia, as well as in Belarus, the United Arab Emirates, India and Brazil. Sputnik V is 92 percent effective, based on data from the first 16,000 volunteers who have received both shots of the two-dose vaccine.