Together with Biontech, Pfizer produces the Comirnaty vaccine. What’s next for the Corona vaccinations? Company boss Albert Bourla comments.
Jerusalem – It is not yet clear what the future of corona vaccinations will look like. Do people who want to be vaccinated have to go to the booster appointment every few months to protect themselves? Is an annual corona vaccination enough? Or will there soon be a vaccine injection that offers immune protection for several years? The head of the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Albert Bourla, speaks up.
In an interview with the Israeli news channel N12 News on Saturday (January 22, 2022), the pharma CEO was asked whether he thinks it makes sense to regularly administer booster vaccinations against corona every four to five months. Bourla’s response: “That’s not a good scenario. I hope we will have a vaccine that you have to use once a year.”
According to the Pfizer boss, corona boosters at short intervals do not make sense
Albert Bourla said if people only get vaccinated once a year, it’s easier to convince them. From a public health perspective, this is the ideal way. “We want to see if we can develop a vaccine that covers omicron and doesn’t forget the other variants, and that could be a solution,” Bourla said.
The CEO, who has Greek roots, added that Pfizer is ready to seek approval for a newly designed specialty vaccine to combat the omicron mutant. The vaccine could be mass-produced by the pharmaceutical giant as early as March 2022.
Pfizer is producing the corona vaccine Comirnaty together with the Mainz-based biotechnology company Biontech. The vaccine is an mRNA preparation. In addition to Comirnaty, the Spikevax vaccine from the US company Moderna also uses mRNA technology.
Corona study from Israel: Second booster vaccination does not protect enough against omicron
A study published by the Israeli Shiba Hospital on Monday (01/17/2022) came to the conclusion that a fourth corona vaccination only provides limited protection against the omicron variant.
Infections are also observed in people who have been vaccinated four times, said Professor Gili Regev from the Shiba Hospital. Two weeks after a fourth dose of the Biontech/Pfizer preparation, a “nice increase” in antibodies can be observed. Their number is even slightly higher than the value after the third corona vaccination. “But for Omikron this nice value is not enough.” The fourth vaccination offers “only partial protection against the virus.” (tvd)
