Filenews 12 February 2021
BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin, who developed Pfizer's 12-week-old coronavirus vaccine, expressed doubts about the correctness of the UK strategy to administer the second dose of the formulation 12 weeks after the first.
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Sahin said it would justify a six-week gap between the two instalments. "But it wouldn't delay it any further. As a scientist I think it's not good to go beyond six weeks,"" he said.
He acknowledged that governments have difficult decisions to make based on the limited availability of vaccines, but warned that the first dose alone over a three-month period provides only partial protection.
"Therefore, at the end of the day it is an assessment of the risk and benefit function of government bodies, i.e. whether more people deserve less protection for vaccinated people to be given less protection," Mr Sahin added.
The British health authorities and the government adopted early in the course of the country's vaccination programme the strategy of administering the second dose of vaccines after 12 weeks.
While the Oxford vaccine researchers and AstraZeneca agreed with this tactic for their own formulation, saying it had been studied in clinical trials, Pfizer had warned that its own vaccine had not been tested under this dosing regime.
"At the end of the day we need clinical evidence, that's what counts. If scientific evidence and arguments are presented, then people can be convinced," noted the head of BioNTech.
Ugur Sahin also estimated that "some kind of normality" would be achieved by the summer, although the coronavirus would not be eliminated. His prediction is that mortality rates from the virus may fall below the corresponding rates for influenza, thus avoiding future lockdown.
Source: eyenews/CYPE
