Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla calls Israel a ‘world laboratory’ in an interview with NBC

“I believe that Israel has become the world laboratory now because they are using only our vaccine in this state and they vaccinated a large part of its population, so we can study the economy and health indices,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, during an interview with NBC News on Friday.

“What we saw is that the vaccine’s effectiveness in real-world data is getting higher as we speak, after the second vaccination, so seven days compared to 14 days after the second vaccination, there is a difference in effectiveness,” said Bourla.

When asked if someone could infect others after receiving two doses of the vaccine, he said: “It needs to be confirmed and the real-world data we are getting from Israel and other studies will help us to understand this better.

“But there are many indicators now that tell us that there is protection against the transmission of the disease,” added Bourla.

Bourla also noted that studies on the risk of the vaccine are also underway in pregnant women and younger children.

“We have already licensed for children from 16 years old … we are already testing for children between 11 and 16 years old and I hope we can have the data in a few months. We are also planning to start pediatric studies from a younger age, from 5 to 11 years old. And I believe we should have data on this population by the end of the year, “said Bourla, according to NBC.

Regarding how long the protection remains after receiving two doses of the vaccine, Bourla said that the current data shows that after six months the protection is robust, but it is necessary to wait up to a year to know if it remains the whole year.

The NBC interview also mentioned the recent Israeli study on the vaccine’s effectiveness, with Bourla noting that the data came largely from a younger population. He said it remains a high risk to have only one dose of the vaccine to fight the coronavirus.

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