In a conversation about mistrust of Covid-19 vaccines among Black people in an online forum with the National Urban League, Fauci said Corbett was one of two leaders of the team which created a vaccine found to be 94% effective.
Corbettâs team at the National Institutes of Health worked with pharmaceutical company Moderna to develop the vaccine â one of two found to be more than 90% effective â which is expected to be authorised for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration this month.
Asked to talk about the involvement of African American scientists in the vaccination effort, Fauci said: âThat [Moderna] vaccine was actually developed in my instituteâs vaccine research centre by a team of scientists led by Dr Barney Graham and his close colleague Dr Kizzmekia Corbett, or Kizzy Corbett. Kizzy is an African American scientist who is right at the forefront of the development of the vaccine.