Pfizer-BioNTech to begin testing booster shot to combat variants; Trisha Yearwood 'doing OK' after
- megan1751
- Feb 25, 2021
- 2 min read
Pfizer-BioNTech will begin testing a booster shot to combat COVID-19 variants, the companies announced Thursday.
The announcement came one day after new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine cut symptomatic COVID-19 cases across all age groups by 94%.
Now the two-company collaboration has asked 144 volunteers who participated in the earliest phase of its clinical vaccine trials last year to volunteer again to receive the booster, a third shot of the same vaccine designed to see whether it will help them fight off new, more infectious variants that have been circulating in recent months.
Pfizer-BioNTech also wants to study a different vaccine that would specifically target the B.1.351 variant, originally seen in South Africa. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration would have to sign off on any change to the vaccine or its delivery.
The news follows an announcement Wednesday afternoon by Moderna, the other company that makes one of the two authorized COVID-19 vaccines, that it is starting a clinical trial of a new vaccine designed to combat the B.1.351 variant. Other vaccine makers, including Novavax, also have said they are developing alternative versions of their vaccines to address possible variants.
It’s not yet clear whether a new vaccine or booster will be needed to address the known variants. But companies want to be prepared if studies show a new vaccine is needed.
“While we have not seen any evidence that the circulating variants result in a loss of protection provided by our vaccine, we are taking multiple steps to act decisively and be ready in case a strain becomes resistant to the protection afforded by the vaccine," Albert Bourla, Pfizer's chairman and CEO said in a prepared statement.
– Karen Weintraub
By Elinor Aspegren and John Bacon, USA TODAY
Thu, February 25, 2021, 9:06 AM·
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