(Adds detail from interview)
WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn told Reuters on
Friday it was realistic to expect that 20 million Americans
could be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of this year.
Hahn declined to give a specific timeline of how long
approval of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech
would take, saying only that the regulator would move
"very quickly" after an advisory committee meets on Dec. 10.
Hahn also said he had a "robust discussion" at a White House
meeting with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to discuss the timing
of a vaccine.
Many federal officials are expecting a vaccine approval
within days of the Dec. 10 meeting, though one FDA official
recently said an approval decision could take weeks.
A speedy vaccine approval could be a political win for the
outgoing administration of President Donald Trump, which has
been pushing for effective treatments to help restore a sense of
normality to daily life and a hard-hit U.S. economy.
Its Operation Warp Speed program has struck deals with
several drugmakers in an effort to help speed up the search for
effective treatments to fight the global pandemic.
Britain leapt ahead of the United States this week in
approving Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, intensifying scrutiny on
U.S. regulators as they consider whether to grant emergency use
in the country that leads the world in coronavirus infections.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, Caroline Humer, Susan Heavey
and Jeff Mason; Editing by Nick Zieminski and David Clarke)