Dr. Siegel exults over promising UK coronavirus vaccine news: 'Hats off to the scientists around the world'
'We won two World Wars together. US and UK, and now we're teaming up to beat this virus'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Wednesday that new reports indicate a coronavirus vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford is showing a "robust immune response" in trial participants.
"Brian, tonight, people on all sides of the political aisle are cheering. We already had great news from Moderna this week that they are showing a robust immune response against the COVID-19 virus [with their vaccine]," Siegel told guest host Brian Kilmeade.
"Now, Oxford University in England, which the World Health Organization calls the leader in terms of vaccines, may be showing it because, Brian, they're already having the late stage clinical trials all around the world in India, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, in Brazil, where the hotspots are. Late trials already starting in July."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FIRST CORONAVIRUS VACCINE TESTED IN US YIELDED ANITBODIES IN PATIENTS, RESEARCHERS SAY
Siegel went on to say that the British medical journal The Lancet is scheduled to publish early-stage human trial data on the Oxford vaccine next week, and reports indicate that those trials have also shown a robust response.
"This is a brand new kind of vaccine, Brian, which uses something from a chimp, a virus from a chimp, an adenovirus to seed ourselves with the protein that causes this robust immune response."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Nearly two dozen possible vaccines are in various stages of development and testing around the world.
"This is the world leader and we are ready here in the United States to ramp up," Siegel said. "So it's hats off tonight to the Trump administration for Operation Warp Speed, which will take this vaccine and put it together with the manufacturing to make hundreds of millions of doses -- if it works -- available by the end of the year.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Hats off to the scientists around the world who are coming up with this vaccine. And finally, hats off to our partnership, the special relationship the United States has with the United Kingdom. We won two World Wars together. U.S. and U.K., and now we're teaming up to beat this virus that's threatening the world," Siegel added.
Though the vaccine is being manufactured by a British university and a British-Swedish company, Siegel made clear that the U.S. is "heavily involved in this."
"We will ramp it up and we will be able to produce the doses we need," he said. "Manufacturing will keep pace with the science. This has never been done in human history."