The American and German biotechnology companies “will study the effects of a third dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, to assess the safety and the way in which a booster injection is tolerated”, in the face of concerns raised by the SARS-CoV variants -2, announced the two companies.
Participants in phase 1 of their clinical trial in the United States will thus be offered a third dose “6 to 12 months” after receiving the first two, “as part of the clinical development strategy of the two companies to evaluate the ‘efficacy of a third dose against circulating or future variants’.
Pfizer and BioNTech also state that they are in “discussions with the regulatory authorities” to submit a modified version of their vaccine “with a sequence specific to the variants”.
The South African variant is considered by scientists to be one of the most worrying because it has shown that it can partially counter the immune defenses developed after certain treatments.
The two companies point out, however, that they have not observed any change in the “antibody levels” after injection of the initial formulation of their vaccine in the face of the variants, and therefore no “significant reduction in the protection provided” by the two conventional doses.
The effectiveness of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine was also confirmed by a very large study carried out in Israel and published on Wednesday.
According to this study, the efficacy is 94% against symptomatic cases of Covid-19.
It was carried out using data from some 1.2 million people treated while the British variant was circulating widely in the country, confirming the effectiveness of the vaccine against this variant.
The American biotechnology company Moderna, at the origin of the other vaccine authorized in the United States, for its part announced Wednesday that a modified version of its vaccine, developed specifically against the South African variant, was ready to be tested on humans in clinical trials.
“We must be vigilant and proactive about new variants”, underlined Stéphane Bancel, boss of Moderna.
The US Medicines Agency (FDA) said on Monday that manufacturers would not have to re-conduct long clinical trials for modified versions of their already authorized vaccines, but less extensive testing, which should greatly accelerate their implementation. on the market in case of conclusive results.
This is already happening, for example, with modified versions of influenza vaccines every year.
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