EMA – Gap between Pfizer doses should be three weeks
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Amsterdam (dpa) – The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has tightened its guidelines for the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in a resolution published on Thursday, according to which the second dose has to be administered within three weeks after the first.
The experts previously recommended an interval of “at least 21 days” between the first and the second jab. Now this time frame has been specified to three weeks and the agency explicitly advised not to surpass it.
“There are currently no clinical data on the efficacy of the vaccine when administered beyond intervals used in the clinical trial,” the EMA said.
The agency also pointed out that more than 93 per cent of subjects in the clinical trials received the second dose of the vaccine 19 to 23 days after the first. Therefore the vaccine’s efficacy of about 95 per cent was based on this data.
However, several countries, including the Netherlands, had decided to administer the second dose only after about six weeks due to a delay in deliveries, hoping to be able to vaccinate more people this way.
The vaccine is only fully effective against a coronavirus infection after both shots have been received.
