Pharmaceuticals Pfizer and BioNTech want approval from the American and European health authorities to administer a third shot with their corona vaccine. Such a third shot can significantly increase the amount of antibodies in a person’s body, they say.
A third shot should be given within six to 12 months of the second shot. Now people are getting two shots of the Pfizer vaccine. Studies have shown that those two shots are also necessary to provide good protection against the delta variant of the virus.
However, a Pfizer researcher suspects that the delta variant can still lead to a mild infection in people who have been fully vaccinated over time, because the antibodies decrease. A third jab could help against that, he tells the AP news agency. According to the companies, the number of antibodies increases five to ten times after a third injection.
The US health authorities FDA and CDC say that an extra shot is not necessary now. “But if the science shows it’s necessary, then we’re ready,” they said in a statement.
As a precautionary measure, a special vaccine against the delta variant is also being worked on. The first vaccines have now been produced by BioNTech at the factory in Mainz, Germany. The company will begin its first clinical trials of that vaccine next month.
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