President Joe Biden listens to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at the Pfizer Kalamazoo Manufacturing Site on February 19, 2021 in Portage, Michigan.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people are likely to need a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of being fully vaccinated. His comments were released Thursday, but were recorded on April 1.
He also said that it is possible for people to get vaccinated against the virus every year.
“It’s extremely important to suppress the pool of people who may be susceptible to the virus,” he told CNN’s Bertha Coombs during an event with CVS Health. He added that the vaccines will be an important tool in the fight against many infectious variants.
Pfizer said earlier this month that updated data from its clinical trial showed that the vaccine was very effective six months after the second dose. The data is based on more than 12,000 vaccinated participants. More data are still needed to determine if the protection lasts after six months.
Earlier Thursday, Biden administration’s Covid response scientist David Kessler said Americans should expect to receive shots to protect against coronavirus variants.
Kessler told U.S. lawmakers that vaccines currently approved are very protective, but noted that new variants could “challenge” the effectiveness of the shots.
“We do not know everything at the moment,” he told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Response.
“We are studying the durability of the antibody response,” he said. “It seems strong, but there’s a slight decrease in it, and it’s undoubtedly a challenge for the varieties … it makes these vaccines work harder. So I think only for planning purposes, but only for planning purposes, and we have to expect that we may have to give a boost. “
In February, Pfizer and BioNTech said they were testing a third dose of their Covid-19 vaccine to better understand the immune response to new variants of the virus.
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