Pfizer CEO: 4th Vaccine Shot Could Be Needed

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine could be needed amid concerns of about Omicron variant, media agencies reported on Thursday.

Bourla told CNBC that a fourth dose of vaccine could eventually be required to resist the virus’s mutations, and it would be given 12 months after the third one.

Next, he added that after the rise of Omicron this 12-month-timeline needed to be moved up, saying: "With Omicron, we need to wait and see because we have very little information. We may need it faster."

The company asserted that the Pfizer vaccine could provide good protection against the rise of Omicron.

However, a new study conducted by the Africa Health Research Institute revealed that Pfizer vaccine's antibodies could be up to 40 times less effective against the recently emerged Omicron variant, Sky News reported on Wednesday.

The head of the study’s team, Professor Alex Sigal, explained that the antibodies from people who were vaccinated and infected with COVID-19 showed a positive reaction towards the recent COVID-19 mutation, so he suggested that booster vaccine shots could strengthen the function of the vaccine’s antibodies against the variant.

Regarding the ability of the new strain to resist vaccines, the study showed that Omicron’s ability to escape vaccines is five to ten times better than the Beta variant.

Sigal explained that the new study proved that Omicron has better immune escape, and more transmission speed than other previously detected strains.

The study included a small number of participants, which is only 12 people, and all of them were vaccinated; therefore, it can’t give a lot of details about the Omicron-COVID-19 vaccine relationship.

However, it highlighted that booster shots of vaccine can make significant difference.