WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th May, 2021) Those vaccinated for COVID-19 in the United States will probably need booster shots to ensure they do not recontract the virus, while antivirals must also be developed to widen immunity, US viral scientist David Kessler said on Tuesday.
"There is a probability that booster doses may be needed," Kessler, Chief Science Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services and member of the White House COVID Response Team, told a Congressional hearing when asked by US senators what was required to contain the pandemic. "To mitigate the risk of viral evolution, we also need to hasten our search for an antiviral."
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, meanwhile, told CNBC the US government is planning for the potential need for booster shots "just in case."
It is still unclear if booster shots will be necessary to manage future variants of COVID, with new strains of the virus since the fall of last year causing fresh major outbreaks in Britain, Brazil and, most lately, India.
The United States has administered 262 million doses of coronavirus vaccines so far, fully immunizing 116 million Americans or 35.2 percent of the population. President Joe Biden has set a personal target of vaccinating 70 percent of adult Americans by the Fourth of July Independence Day holiday.
Kessler said if booster shots were needed, they would be administered free to Americans, just like the first round of COVID-19 vaccines.
"We do have the funds to purchase the next round and to assure if there are boosters that they are free just as the last round," he told the senators at Tuesday's hearing. "People who are immunosuppressed, who do not mount an immune response for a number of reasons or choose not to be vaccinated, will continue to be vulnerable and we need options for them. The antibody treatments are one approach but a simple oral antiviral can add to our armamentarium to bring this epidemic under control."
Vaccine developer Pfizer said last month that it could have before the end of next year the first oral antiviral drug to treat COVID at the first sign of illness.
The drug is part of a class of medicines called protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme that the virus needs to replicate in human cells, Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said.
