(Reuters) – Researchers on Wednesday urged governments to delay the administration of the second dose of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine, which they say has an efficacy of 92.6% after the first dose.
The researchers, Danuta Skowronski and Gaston De Serres, said their findings were derived from Pfizer’s documents submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
These findings were also similar to the first dose efficacy of 92.1% reported for Moderna Inc’s mRNA-1273 vaccine, Skowronski and De Serres said in their letter published https://www.nejm.org/doi/ full / 10.1056 / NEJMc2036242 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
They warned that there could be uncertainty about the duration of protection with a single dose, but said that the administration of the second dose a month after the first ‘in the short term’ offers little additional benefit ‘.
“Given the current shortage of vaccines, the postponement of the second dose is a matter of national security that, if ignored, will certainly result in thousands of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths this winter in the United States,” warned the authors.
In its response, Pfizer said that the alternative doses of the vaccine have not yet been evaluated and that the decision to do so rests with the health authorities.
“We at Pfizer believe that it is critical for healthcare authorities to oversee implemented alternative dosing schedules to ensure vaccines provide the maximum possible protection,” he added.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; editing by Vinay Dwivedi)