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The U.S. is preparing for the possibility that a shot will be needed between nine and twelve months after people were initially vaccinated against Covid-19, a White House official said Thursday.
While studying the duration of immunity after vaccination, boost vaccines may be needed, David Kessler, chief scientific officer of Joe Biden’s response task force Covid-19, said at a congressional meeting.
‘We are studying the durability of the antibody response. So I think for planning purposes and for planning purposes only, I think we should expect to give a boost, ‘Kessler said.
“The current thinking is that those who are more vulnerable will have to go first,” he said.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla also said it was “likely” that people would need a third dose of coronavirus vaccine within a year, with annual revaccination also a possibility.
“We need to see what the sequence would be, and how often we should do it remains to be seen,” Bourla told a CNBC reporter during an event with CVS Health. The CEO’s comments were released on Thursday, but they were filmed two weeks ago.
Bourla added: ‘A likely scenario is that a third dose will probably be needed, between six and twelve months, and from there it will be vaccinated again annually, but this needs to be confirmed. And again, these would mean that you have to spend for these processes. ”
Initial data showed that vaccines from Moderna and partners Pfizer and BioNTech SE retained most of their efficacy for at least six months, although for how much longer it has not been determined.
Even though the protection lasts much longer than six months, experts said that rapidly spreading variants of the coronavirus and others that can occur can lead to the need for regular booster shots similar to annual flu shots.
The U.S. also keeps infections in people who have been fully vaccinated, Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the House subcommittee hearing.
To date, nearly 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S., and about 38% of the U.S. population has received at least one shot.
Of the 77 million people vaccinated in the U.S., there were 5,800 such breakthrough infections, Walensky said, including 396 people who had to be hospitalized and 74 who died.
According to Walensky, some of these infections occurred because the vaccinated person did not have a strong immune response. But the concern is that in some cases it occurs in people infected with more infectious virus variants.
This month, Pfizer and BioNTech said their vaccine was approximately 91% effective at preventing Covid-19, citing updated trial data that completely vaccinated more than 12,000 people for at least six months.