Washington:

The US top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci warned on Sunday that a new wave of COVID-19 infections could be on the way while urging former President Donald Trump to tell his supporters to be vaccinated.

According to The Hill, Fauci — in an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” — pointed to surges across the European Union and warned that Europe’s case trends tend to be a few weeks ahead of similar trends in the US.

Europe “always seem to be a few weeks ahead of us,” Dr Fauci said, adding that it was “absolutely no time to declare victory” over the virus.

“They thought they were home free, and they weren’t, and now they are seeing cases going up,” he said of European health officials.

When asked about what could be done to combat vaccine skepticism in the US, particularly among Republicans, Fauci urged Trump to tell his supporters to get vaccinated.

“It would be very helpful for the effort for that to happen. I’m very surprised by the number of Republicans who say they won’t get vaccinated… I think it would make all the difference in the world” if Trump were to express support for vaccines, Fauci said and added, “He’s a widely popular person among Republicans.”

As per The Hill, Fauci’s remarks come just days after a PBS poll found that nearly half of all Republican-aligned men said they would not get the COVID-19 vaccine, a result that has vexed health officials around the country seeking to drive down case rates.

More than 101 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the US so far, and in a national address last week, President Joe Biden pledged that all American adults would be eligible to receive the vaccine by May 1.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)