Washington, United States

US President Donald Trump has announced the nuances of the 'warp-speed' effort to create coronavirus vaccine by year's end, defying expert warnings that such a breakthrough could take longer than 18 months.

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During remarks in the White House Rose Garden on Friday, he likened the vaccine project, dubbed "Operation Warp Speed", to the World War Two effort to produce the world's first nuclear weapons.

Also read: US House passes $3 trillion coronavirus aid bill, fate uncertain in Senate

The project would begin with studies on 14 promising vaccine candidates for accelerated research and approval.

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Trump called the operation, "a massive scientific, industrial and logistical endeavour unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project."

Moncef Slaoui, who previously led the vaccines division at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, will lead the mission, while Gen Gustave Perna, who oversees distribution for the US Army, is to serve as chief operating officer.

He insisted that US is reopening, ''vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back.''

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In testimony to Congress on Tuesday, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned: “There’s no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective.”

And on Thursday Rick Bright, the ousted head of a government agency seeking a vaccine, told Congress: “Normally, it takes up to 10 years to make a vaccine. A lot of optimism is swirling around a 12-to-18-month time frame, if everything goes perfectly. We’ve never seen everything go perfectly.”