New York: Pfizer and its partner BioNTech began clinical trials for the Omicron specific vaccine. The tweaked vaccine is aimed to target the COVID-19 Omicron variant, which has eluded some of the protection provided by the original two-dose vaccine regimen.
The annoucement on Tuesday came through a statement from the owners of the vaccine firm.The company is determined to asess effect of the virus both unvaccinated and double sheilded individuala, a three-shot regimen and a booster dose respectively.
A trial for the fourth dose of the vaccine will also be conducted in individuals who received their third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine three to six months earlier.
In a statement given by Pfizer’s head of vaccine research and development, Kathrin Jansen, it was clearly indicated that the firm aimed to control the present and prepare for future variants. “We recognize the need to be prepared in the event this protection wanes over time and to potentially help address Omicron and new variants in the future,” she said.
The study would involve 1,420 controls between the age 18-55. The trial would b done in three groups with differently set parameters. The first involves people who previously received two doses of the current Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine 90-180 days prior to enrollment, and will receive one or two doses of the Omicron vaccine.The second will be people who got three doses of the current vaccine 90-180 days prior to the study and will receive either another dose of the original shot or an Omicron-specific vaccine. The last batch of people would be those who never recieved any vaccination so far.