Professor Saul Faust, director of the National Institute for Health Research Southampton clinical research facility and the trial’s lead investigator, said the “hope of a booster is that we raise the antibody level enough to be able to cover existing and variant strains of coronavirus”.
‘Booster vaccine is seen as a possible way of beating any new Covid-19 variant.’
The study will be conducted at 16 sites in England involving 2,886 patients aged 30 years and above and will assess Covid-19 vaccines of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax, Valneva, Janssen and Curevac.
A third booster vaccine dose will be administered after a minimum of 10 to 12 weeks from a second dose and observe for any side effects by analysing the blood samples at days 28, 84, 308 and 365.
Expecting the review of initial trial data by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in September to decide on a booster programme in the country this year.
This world’s first booster vaccine clinical trial will give the perception about the effectiveness of a booster vaccine dose in protecting against the Covid-19 virus.
Source: Medindia
