DUBAI: Pfizer Inc. on Friday forecast that the COVID-19 pandemic would not be behind us until 2024 and said a lower-dose version of its vaccine for 2-4 year olds generated a weaker immune response than expected, potentially delaying authorization.
The company said it is testing a three-dose course of the vaccine in all age groups under 16, including 2-4 year olds. It had previously expected data from that age group this year, but said it did not expect the delay would meaningfully change plans to file for emergency use authorization in the second quarter of 2022.
“The data are illustrating the impact of a booster and that our vaccine works best as a primary regimen of three doses,” Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said on a conference call.
Pfizer developed the vaccine with Germany’s BioNTech SE . The companies has been developing a version of their vaccine tailored to combat the quick-spreading omicron variant, although they have not decided whether it will be needed. They expect to start a clinical trial for the updated vaccine in January, Pfizer executives said.
The company said it currently expects the vaccine to generate revenue of $31 billion next year. Variant-specific shots, if needed, could boost sales in 2022.
Pfizer and BioNTech tested a 3-microgram dose of its vaccine in 2-5 year-olds after using a 10-microgram dose in 5-11 year- olds and 30-microgram doses in everyone over 12. In children aged 6 to 24 months, the low-dose version of the vaccine generated an immune response consistent with that of older vaccine recipients, the company said.
If the three-dose study is successful, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to submit data to regulators to support an Emergency Use Authorization for children six months to under five years of age in the first half of 2022.
Pfizer says pandemic could extend until 2024 as 2-4 year-olds vaccine data delayed
https://arab.news/24q9h
Pfizer says pandemic could extend until 2024 as 2-4 year-olds vaccine data delayed
- The company said it is testing a three-dose course of the vaccine in all age groups under 16
- "The data are illustrating the impact of a booster and that our vaccine works best as a primary regimen of three doses," Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said
French court slashes jails term for trio over 2020 teacher beheading
- Brahim Chnina, the Moroccan father of a girl who falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing the caricatures, had his 13-year sentence reduced to 10 years
PARIS, France: A French court on Monday reduced on appeal the jail sentences of three men convicted over the 2020 terrorist beheading of a teacher who showed a class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Samuel Paty, 47, was murdered in October 2020 by an 18-year-old radical Islamist of Chechen origin in an act that horrified France.
His attacker, Abdoullakh Anzorov, was killed in a shootout with police.
Two friends of Anzorov, French national Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov, a Russian of Chechen origin, had their sentences of 16 years in prison reduced to six and seven years respectively by a Paris court of appeal.
Both were accused of having driven Anzorov and helping him to procure weapons before the beheading.
Brahim Chnina, the Moroccan father of a girl who falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing the caricatures, had his 13-year sentence reduced to 10 years.
His daughter, then aged 13, was not actually in the classroom at the time and during the first trial apologized to the teacher’s family.
The court however left the 15-year term for French-Moroccan Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui untouched.
The quartet were among the seven men and one woman found guilty in 2024 of contributing to the climate of hatred that led to the beheading of the history and geography teacher in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris.
Paty, who has become a free-speech icon, used the cartoons as part of an ethics class to discuss freedom of expression laws in France.
