Play all audios:
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, chief scientist and member of the Executive Committee at Johnson and Johnson Dr Paul Stoffles said one billion doses of coronavirus vaccines
could be delivered in the first quarter of 2021. He said: "We are doing a very large production scale already in the US and in Europe and we are building additional capacity around the
world. "Next year we can at least deliver one billion dosages already. "We are working to do more. So we didn't wait for clinicals to start production." Asked whether
people could expect injections by the end of 2020, he said: "I think it will be early next year, in the first quarter, January to March. "Of course, everything depends now on the
speed we can recruit and finding the regions where there is transmission because we need transmission to prove that it works." __READ MORE: CORONAVIRUS TEST RESULT: HOW LONG TO GET YOUR
COVID-19 TEST RESULTS? COVID-19 vaccine candidates will enter late-stage clinical studies by the end of the month, with others beginning in August, September and October, the US
Government's top infectious diseases expert said on Thursday. The news comes as Moderna Inc, which is at the forefront of the country's vaccine development efforts, reiterated
earlier in the day that a late-stage trial with 30,000 volunteers would begin this month. "We may be able to at least know whether we are dealing with a safe and effective vaccine by
the early winter, late winter, (or) beginning of 2021," Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview to JAMA Network.
Earlier on Thursday, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the US National Institutes of Health, said the Trump administration's vaccine-acceleration program could generate a safe and
effective COVID-19 vaccine by year-end. The company said in May it was preparing to ramp up manufacturing operations to handle demand for COVID-19 testing kits in the event of a second wave
of infections in the fall. Among the many tests that Becton Dickinson has recently launched is a kit that can give results in two to three hours, as well as an antibody test that can confirm
current or past exposure to COVID-19 in as little as 15 minutes. The United Kingdom's death toll from confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rose to 43,995 on Thursday from 43,906
the day before, government figures showed. Including suspected cases, the toll is approaching 55,000, according to a Reuters tally of official data sources.