Pfizer chief says people are likely to need an annual Covid booster shot

The CEO of Pfizer says that people are likely to need a third dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within twelve months of being fully vaccinated, and that they may need to receive annual boosters.

“There is probably a need for a third dose between six and twelve months, and from there it will be vaccinated again every year,” Albert Bourla said in an interview with CVS Health that was broadcast on Thursday.

As the US continues to vaccinate millions of people every day, attention has been drawn to emerging safely from the pandemic and the extent to which annual vaccinations similar to flu substances are needed to keep the virus under control in the long term.

Bourla’s comments come as U.S. health officials testified before Congress on how to control the spread of the virus after the pandemic subsided.

David Kessler, chief science officer of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, told a congressional committee: ‘I think we should expect to get a boost. . . and the current thinking is that those who are more vulnerable will probably have to go first. ”

“But I think you have it with a lot of vaccines, we understand that we have to give it a boost at some point, whether it is nine months, 12 months, and we are preparing for the arrival,” he said. he added.

Data from Pfizer and BioNTech this month showed that their mRNA vaccine was 91 percent effective against the virus six months after the second dose.

“The protection goes down over time, but in the six months it is still very high,” Bourla said.

In February, the two companies began testing a third shot at fully vaccinated individuals six to twelve months after their second samples to understand the effect of an enhancer on immunity and against new virus strains.

The BioNTech / Pfizer sample is the most widely used vaccine in the US, with doses of almost 103 million, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 38.3 million of the doses were completely vaccinated.

This week, Bourla posted on Twitter that Pfizer could reach its 300 million-dose supply target with the U.S. government two weeks ahead of schedule thanks to increased production.

His CVS interview was filmed some time ago, Pfizer said before the deployment of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine across the US was halted due to fears of blood clots.

The spread of the single-shot jab, which is the least administered in the U.S., has been suspended for at least a week by experts from the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices as they investigate six cases of rare blood clots, leading to one death.