Pfizer’s CEO said on Thursday that recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine will “likely” need a third dose between six to 12 months after they are fully vaccinated and that the proposed vaccinations for the coronavirus could be required every year.
Albert Bourla told CNBC’s Bertha Coombs at a CFS Health event that he predicts based on current data that a “likely scenario” will include the COVID-19 vaccine being administered to patients annually.
Bourla said it “remains to be seen” how often any additional vaccines will be provided.
“One likely scenario is that a third dose will probably be needed somewhere between six and 12 months and from there there would be an annual revaccination,” he said at the event.
“But all that has to be confirmed and again the variants will play a key role,” he continued. “It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people who may be susceptible to the virus because they have been vaccinated with highly effective vaccines.”
Earlier this month, Pfizer, along with German partner BioNTech, reported that their vaccine remained 91 percent effective for at least six months after the second dose.
Bourla said the six-month data shows “extremely, extremely high” protection against COVID-19, noting that protection is still “diminishing with time.”
Health officials have previously raised the possibility that the public may need booster COVID-19 shots.
Top expert in infectious diseases Anthony Fauci
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David Kessler, the White House chief science officer, told lawmakers at a hearing on Thursday that people “should expect” to get booster shots, noting that officials “don’t know everything at this point.”
Pfizer and BioNTech said earlier this year that they were testing a third dose of their vaccine against the COVID-19 variants that have spread worldwide.
Peter Marks, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said during a webinar of the American Medical Association that officials think protection “will likely last at least nine months.”
“It is possible, we are not sure, that sometime after nine months, a year, we might need boosters, but we get a better sense of that, probably we get more certainty every month about when that might be needed. , ‘he added.
According to data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 103 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and more than 87 million doses of the Moderna vaccine have been administered in the US.
Updated 2:33 pm