The Biden Administration considers that, for the moment, it is not necessary to give a third booster dose to those vaccinated with the drug against coronavirus from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer-BioNTech, as requested by the American company, and will wait for it to be do more research to make a final decision.
Representatives of Pfizer-BioNTech presented to health officials at a meeting on Monday some preliminary reports on the vaccine they commercialize and the need for a third injection for those who have been inoculated with it.
"Both Pfizer and the US Government share a sense of urgency to stay ahead on COVID-19, and we also agree that scientific data will dictate the next steps in the rigorous regulatory process that we always follow." explained Sharon Castillo, a spokeswoman for the pharmaceutical company.
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This meeting came after the pharmaceutical company announced last week that it was going to ask the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for authorization to administer a third dose of its vaccine in order to make it more effective.
And it also took place on the same day that Israel began administering third doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to heart transplant patients and other people with immune problems.
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However, after the meeting, which lasted about an hour, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English) published a joint statement in which they specified that this reinforcement was not needed.
They stressed that more data is needed, and possibly several more months, before regulators could determine whether the booster injections will be needed.
Gigi Morgan Clark, 12, receives an injection of the Pfizer-BioNTec vaccine against COVID-19 in Pasadena, California, on Friday, May 14, 2021.AP Photo / Marcio Jose Sanchez
Pfizer is collecting information on antibody responses in those patients who receive a third dose of the vaccine (as is done in Israel) and expects to send at least some of those reports to the FDA in the next few weeks for clearance from the use of a third injection.
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But the final decision on booster vaccines, according to several officials after the meeting, will also depend on the actual information obtained on patients from the CDC.
The spread of the Delta variant, first detected in India and now the dominant infection in many countries, has raised concerns about whether the available vaccines offer sufficient protection.
Several experts say a booster shot would be warranted if there is a substantial increase in hospitalizations or deaths among vaccinated people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that rich countries should not order booster vaccines for their vaccinated populations while other countries have yet to receive COVID-19 vaccines.
With information from EFE and Reuters.