Pfizer CEO Albert Burla said people were likely to need a third, booster dose of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine within 12 months of the first two doses, BNR reported.
“It is extremely important to suppress the group of people who may be susceptible to the coronavirus,” he told CNBC television during an event hosted by US healthcare company CVS Health. As early as February, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech initiated a study to evaluate the safety and need for a third dose of their mRNA coronavirus vaccine. The US authorities seem to have reached a similar conclusion.
A White House spokesman said Thursday that the United States was preparing for the possibility of a booster dose being needed between 9 and 12 months after people were first vaccinated against COVID-19, Reuters reported. As long as the duration of immunity after vaccination continues to be studied, booster injections may be needed, said David Kessler, chief scientific officer of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 Response Task Force, before a congressional committee meeting. “The current thinking is that those who are more vulnerable will eventually have to be vaccinated first with a third dose,” Kessler said.
According to Reuters, initial data show that the vaccines of Moderna Inc and partners Pfizer / BioNTech retain most of their effectiveness for at least six months. Even if this protection lasts much longer, experts say that the rapidly spreading variants of coronavirus and others that may occur may lead to the need for regular booster injections – such as annual flu shots.
The United States is also tracking infections in people who have been fully vaccinated, said Rochelle Valensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of the 77 million people vaccinated in the United States, there are 5,800 such “breakthrough” infections, Valenski said, including 396 people in need of hospitalization and 74 dead. Valenski said some of these infections occurred because the vaccinated person did not receive a strong immune response. But the concern is that in some cases, these problems occur in people infected with more contagious viral variants.
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