Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla Says Fourth Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine 'Necessary'; Plans to Send Data to FDA

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla noted during a CBS' "Face the Nation" interview on Sunday that it will be necessary to receive the fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Bourla said that the protection that people are getting from the third is good enough for hospitalizations and deaths, but it is not that "good against infections," adding that it does not last very long, according to a Business Insider report.

The Pfizer CEO has earlier said that he believes a fourth dose would be needed amid the spread of COVID-19.

Bourla earlier said that there is a need in "an environment of Omicron variant to boost the immune response."

He also opened up about the pharmaceutical company's plan to submit a significant process of data about the necessity for the fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine to the Food and Drug Administration.

Pfizer Fourth Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine

Bourla said that Pfizer is making a vaccine that covers Omicron and all the other variants, adding that there are so much trials that are going right now. He then said that he thinks the biggest question for all of the people right now is how to stay ahead of the virus.

The Pfizer official said that they are working on developing a vaccine that prevents infection while preventing hospitalizations and severe cases of the virus, adding that making long-lasting vaccines is their top priority, according to a CNBC News report. Bourla said that people cannot have vaccines every five or six months, noting that they need to be able to move as soon as possible.

Countries such as Israel, Chile, and Germany have already started recommending fourth COVID-19 doses for high-risk groups, according to The Hill report.

Bourla said that if they can make a vaccine that protects against all variants, it would be very easy to follow and remember, and go back to the way that people "used to live."

COVID-19 Vaccine Fourth Dose

A study posted on the medRxiv preprint server on February 15 without peer review suggested that the current mRNA vaccines had reached a "ceiling of immunity" after the third dose, according to Miles Davenport, a computational immunologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

Davenport said that further doses will probably only recover the immunity lost over time owing to waning, according to a Nature Briefing report.

Gili Regev-Yochay, a physician and infectious-diseases researcher at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, said that the third dose is really important.

She added that people who are young and healthy without having any risk factors will probably not benefit much from a fourth dose.

However, Regev-Yochay and others said that it could be beneficial for people at higher risk of severe illness.

The study cited that regardless of the vaccine brand, the fourth dose raised participants' levels of neutralizing antibodies, which can block viral infection of cells.

Davenport, however, argued that one cannot keep on "boosting antibody responses forever."

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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