Pfizer Inc said on Friday the COVID-19 pandemic could extend through next year and announced plans to develop a three-dose vaccine regimen for children ages 2 to 16, a move that could delay its authorisation.
The U.S. pharmaceutical company made its comments as European countries geared up for further travel and social restrictions and a study warned that the rapidly spreading Omicron coronavirus variant was five times more likely to reinfect people than its predecessor, Delta.
Pfizer executives said the company believed that by 2024, the disease should be endemic around the globe, meaning it would no longer be a pandemic. The company projected that "COVID will transition to an endemic state potentially by 2024."
Prior to the Omicron variant, top U.S. disease doctor Anthony Fauci forecast the pandemic would end in 2022 in the United States.
Announcing plans to develop a three-dose regimen for ages 2 to 16, Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten told a conference call that results of three doses among people older than 16 showed that the approach offered greater protection.
"Therefore, we have decided to modify each of the pediatric studies to incorporate a third dose to the series and seek licensure for a three-dose series rather than a two-dose series as originally anticipated," the company said.
Pfizer developed its COVID-19 vaccine with Germany's BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE). The companies have been developing a version of their vaccine tailored to combat the Omicron variant, but have not decided whether it will be needed. They expect to start a clinical trial for the updated vaccine in January, the Pfizer executives said.
The risk of reinfection with the Omicron variant is 5.4 times higher and it shows no sign of being milder than the Delta variant, a study by Imperial College London found, as cases soar across Europe and threaten year-end festivities.
Past infection may offer as little as 19% protection against reinfection by the new variant, Imperial College said, noting that the study of hundreds of thousands of cases, including 1,846 confirmed as Omicron, had not been peer-reviewed.
Reuters
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