Third shot of COVID-19 vaccine: Pfizer to seek US authorization

4 min read | July 09, 2021 06:15 PM AEST | By Tripti Joshi

Third shot of COVID-19 vaccine: Pfizer to seek US authorization — Image source: iHumnoi, Shutterstock.com

Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine may require 3^rd dose

Two doses of most COVID-19 vaccines are essential for developing high levels of antibodies against all variants of the coronavirus, not only the delta variant.

The ongoing clinical trial, conducted for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, has demonstrated that a third dose can boost the antibody levels 5-10 times higher against the new variants of the coronavirus as compared to the first two doses alone.

MUST READ: COVID-19 vaccine booster shots: do we really need them?

As per the interim data from an ongoing trial, the third COVID-19 shot is also anticipated to provide better protection against the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa, and the Delta variant, identified in India. Besides, Pfizer plans to apply for emergency authorization of a third dose for its COVID-19 vaccine to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

As mentioned by several media reports, in laboratory tests, blood from several dozen people given the first dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca Plc (LON:AZN) COVID-19 vaccines hardly showed inhibition against the delta strain. But after some weeks of getting their second dose, the boost in immunity was demonstrated, and scientists highlighted that it was strong enough for neutralizing delta variant.

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Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine supply to arrive a month earlier in AU

Australia's supply of the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer has been brought forward, with almost 4.5 million doses, expected to reach in September earlier, now anticipated to be available in August. The earlier arrival of the September doses could help immunize more people against COVID-19 during the year.

Australia has between 300,000 and 350,000 doses of Pfizer per week to administer, but demand surpasses that. But Pfizer has confirmed that from 19 July, Australia can anticipate 1 million doses of its vaccine a week and the government anticipates getting 4.5 million dose deliveries in August.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison expects that every Australian will be offered a vaccine by the end of 2021.

Collaboration between Abbvie, Biogen and Pfizer

On 8 July 2021, AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV), Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) and Pfizer collaborated to form the world’s biggest browsable resource connecting rare protein-coding genetic variants to human health and disease. The browser is managed by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and gives access to results from analyses of whole-exome sequencing data from 300,000 UK Biobank research participants.

The partnership between Pfizer, Biogen, and AbbVie makes this information available underscores the significance of working together for advancement. Consistent with members' collaboration commitment, these findings can now be accessed via the new browser without any charge. Furthermore, this browser will enable researchers worldwide to explore and utilize the data for their areas of interest following UK Biobank’s terms of use.

ALSO READ: Silver lining: COVID-19 scares Australia’s criminals out of their jobs

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