Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said people will ‘likely’ need a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine within a year of getting fully vaccinated, CNBC reports.
“We need to see what would be the sequence, and for how often we need to do that, that remains to be seen,” Bourla told CNBC in an interview.
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. And again, the variants will play a key role,” said Bourla.
“It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people that can be susceptible to the virus,” Bourla said.
Researchers currently don’t know how long vaccines provide protection against the Covid-19.
Pfizer published a study earlier this month that said its jab 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.
But researchers say more data is needed to determine whether protection lasts after six months.
Pfizer’s data was based on more than 12,000 vaccinated participants. However, researchers say more data is still needed to determine whether protection lasts after six months.
