Trump accuses Pfizer of delaying announcement

Ex-president of the United States, Donald Trump, alleged Pfizer and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deliberately delayed the announcement of the success of their experimental Covid vaccine's third phase testing to prevent his victory.

"The @US_FDA and the Democrats didn't want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later – As I've said all along!" Trump tweeted.

Trump also claims that his intervention helped clear barriers to vaccine testing. Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO of the American pharmaceutical company, announced on Monday that in the third phase of testing of the experimental Covid vaccine, the drug was 90% effective. The drug is being developed by Pfizer in collaboration with German pharmaceutical company BioNTech.

Bourla added that candidates who received the second dose of the vaccine have been observed to be immunized against Covid-19 within seven days. It took 28 days for the initial dose.

Pfizer hopes to provide five million doses by the end of December and 130 million doses by 2021 world-wide if the vaccine gets approved.

(Edited by Anan Ashraf)