Pfizer reports 'potential' with COVID-19 candidate vaccine after expanding trial to 44,000 people

Pfizer, one of the frontrunners in the quest for a COVID-19 vaccine, said its candidate vaccine is looking safe, and the company expects to have data next month on how well it is protecting people against the coronavirus. 

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday that he is intentionally revealing more information about the COVID-19 candidate vaccine than he would about any other vaccine under development, because he wants the process to be open and transparent.

"Transparency is a must, particularly given this situation and the politicization of the vaccine," he said in a Q&A with journalists.

The company had said Saturday that it was expanding its trial from 30,000 to 44,000 people to include teenagers, ages 16-18, as well as people with diseases such as HIV, and hepatitis A, B, or C. Tuesday, Bourla said the expansion took place because the vaccine appeared to be extremely safe, and the trial could be expanded without delaying the timeline for completion.

"We think this vaccine has the potential to give reasonable and good protection, but we need to monitor [it]," Dolsten said. "It's reasonable also to assume that we need maybe in the future a boost, because this is a real pandemic and there's going to be a lot of virus circulating even after global [vaccination] campaigns."

Jansen said that although Pfizer is still committed to and is "very happy with its current vaccine candidate," the company is already working on a second generation.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/09/15/covid-19-vaccine-pfizer-positive-update/5808960002/

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