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Pfizer CEO: 3rd vaccine dose ‘likely’ needed within 12 months

Pfizer CEO: 3rd vaccine dose ‘likely’ needed within 12 months

The annual vaccination against the covid-19 could be soon a reality, said Pfizer CEO on Thursday. People will “likely” need the 3rd  dose of jab within a year of being fully vaccinated.

Amid pandemic, it is extremely important to suppress the pool of people that can be susceptible to the coronavirus, Pfizer experts believe. The pharmaceutical giant CEO Albert Bourla also said annual inoculations against the novel pathogen originated in China may well be required.

Earlier, Bourla noted that Pfizer needs to see what would be the sequence, and for how often the company needs to do that, that remains to be seen.

“A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed,” he said, adding that variants will play a “key role.”

The recently published study conducted by Pfizer shows that a vaccine is more than 91% effective at protecting against the coronavirus, and more than 95% effective against severe cases of COVID-19 up to six months after the second dose.

So far, the Pfizer anti-virus drug, developed in partnership with German firm BioNTech, leads in American and European vaccination programmes. The pharmaceutical giant announced in February that it was testing a third dose of its vaccine to better combat the emerging strains.