Pfizer and BioNTech have launched a clinical trial to test a mixed flu and covid-19 vaccine, the companies said Thursday, one of several efforts to mix the two shots as experts increasingly recommend that annual coronavirus boosters will be needed.
The early-stage clinical trial will test a dual vaccine that combines Pfizer’s flu vaccine, recently in late-stage clinical trials, and the vaccine jointly developed through corporations, the omicron variants BA. 4 and BA. 5 of the coronavirus.
The U. S. -based trial The U. S. Food and Drug Administration will compare the safety, tolerability and potency of the vaccine’s immune reaction in about 180 people aged 18 to 64, the corporations said.
The first volunteer won a dose of vaccine this week, he said.
Flu and covid parts build the mRNA platform that underpins the companies’ covid vaccine.
Pfizer senior vice president and lead clinical director of vaccine studies and development Annaliesa Anderson said the technology’s “flexibility and speed of manufacturing” during the covid pandemic has proven it is “very suitable for other respiratory diseases. “
BioNTech co-founder and CEO Dr. Ugur Sahin said the companies hope to offer a “more effective way” for other people to be immune to two primary diseases that mutate around existing vaccines.
Influenza and covid are the main killers and causes of poor physical condition worldwide. Both have a transparent and proven pandemic outlook (influenza was expected to be the cause of the next global outbreak before the emergence of the virus that causes COVID-19) and mutate relatively quickly, requiring common vaccine updates to remain protected. This changing landscape leaves experts and pharmaceutical corporations making informed guesses about which strains to target in this season’s plan and those guesses may leave notable gaps in coverage presented through vaccines. Injections are ideal mRNA generation applicants implemented the pandemic, which introduces genetic curtains to trigger the framework for making a safe component of the virus that is then trained to respond to if found in the future, as it is more flexible and responsive than other vaccine technologies.
Pfizer and BioNTech are the only corporations offering a combined Covid flu vaccine. Moderna, which uses the same type of mRNA generation as Pfizer and BioNTech and was its main pandemic rival, is also testing its own mRNA flu vaccine and a vaccine that combines it with its Covid booster vaccine. Novavax, which uses a more classic flavor of vaccine generation, is also preparing a combined injection. BioNTech’s Sahin said the Covid flu trial will give the company more data on combining mRNA vaccines to fight multiple pathogens, which he believes will help consultant its product portfolio going forward.
Moderna is also testing a triple vaccine against RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), covid-19 and influenza. All three are potentially serious respiratory infections and are driving a surge in infections at a time when experts worry overwhelming hospitals. Young infants and the elderly are vulnerable to serious illness with RSV and children’s hospitals across the country are able to cope with the deluge. Moderna leader Stéphane Bancel said the plan could eventually be in place until autumn 2023.
290,000 to 650,000. That’s roughly the number of people who die each year worldwide from seasonal flu, according to the World Health Organization. It causes between 3 and 5 million cases of serious illness. In the United States. , seasonal flu kills between 12,000 and 52,000 people each year, according to CDC estimates, and sickens between nine and 41 million.
The Never-ending Search for the Best Flu Vaccine (Guardian)
mRNA flu vaccine advances as Pfizer launches late-stage trial and builds on Covid vaccine good fortune (Forbes)
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