the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, according to Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security researchers in the UK are initiating a clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of vaccination using doses from 2 different vaccines. Allowing (or potentially recommending) individuals to receive 1 dose each from 2 different vaccines could introduce flexibility into vaccination programs and potentially even increase the degree of protection from the vaccination. The UK government has allocated approximately £7 million (US$9.6 million) to fund the study, and early data could be available by this summer. The study aims to include more than 800 participants aged 50 years and older who have not yet been vaccinated.
The trial will initially involve the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccines. The vaccines utilize different technology, with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine using an mRNA platform and the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine using an adenovirus platform. The participants will be divided among 8 trial arms. Four (4) will be control groups, which will receive 2 doses of the same vaccine (2 groups per vaccine) either 4 or 12 weeks apart. The other 4 groups will trial the mixed doses, with 2 groups receiving the AstraZeneca-Oxford dose first followed by the Pfizer-BioNTech dose, administered either 4 or 12 weeks apart, and 2 groups receiving the doses in the opposite order (4 or 12 weeks apart). The UK announcement stated that additional combinations could be added later, as additional vaccines received authorization.
