Pfizer to Study Vaccinated People to See if Booster is Needed

Pfizer to Study Vaccinated People to See if Booster is Needed

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THE pharmaceutical company Pfizer will carry out a study on a group of people who, after being vaccinated, contracted coronavirus to determine if a booster injection is necessary and when to give it.

As reported by Andalucia Informacion, this was announced by David Swerdlow, an expert in clinical epidemiology of Pfizer during the World Conference on Precision Medicine that is held virtually these days in the city of San Francisco. “We will look at data from the real world to help us understand when we could see a change in the effectiveness of the vaccine,” said Swerdlow, as reported Monday by the Bloomberg agency.

Swerdlow added that they will monitor this situation “closely” and use “immunological data, clinical data and real-world data” to determine when a booster vaccination might be necessary. As of April 30, more than 10,200 cases of infections have been reported in vaccinated people in the US. About 44 per cent of the nation’s population has been fully inoculated, with some 311 million doses administered so far, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.

Booster or follow-up injections are for patients who have received the full dose of their initial vaccine, one or two doses, depending on the brand, and whose immune system may need an extra boost along the way to combat variants or boost the decrease antibodies, says the expert. In this situation, “we are working to understand the impact of booster doses. We will get data from ongoing follow-up of our clinical trials to see how long immune markers last, ”Swerdlow said.

There are still “unanswered questions,” said Julie Louise Gerberding, executive vice president of Merck & Co and former director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “Even with the amazing and wonderful efficacy of the vaccines that are currently licensed, we do not know the durability of long-term protection,” she stressed.

A real-world study called HERO-Together, led by the Duke University Clinical Research Institute, is designed to address the health outcomes and long-term effects of Covid-19 vaccines but is limited to workers in health. Pfizer indicated that its researchers could expand beyond that population, Bloomberg says. “There are many scientific advances that need to be monitored and evaluated as we move forward, we are certainly not out of the woods” with Covid, Gerberding added.

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Diane Burke

Diane is from Limerick, Ireland and has previously lived in Seville. Having graduated with a Masters in Journalism and Public Relations she has a keen interest in digital media. As well as her passion for news, she enjoys learning about human psychology, practising pilates and has a soft spot for tapas!

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