Pfizer announces two-in-one vaccine for Covid AND flu

Pfizer is testing a new two-in-one vaccine targeting both Covid and flu amid sluggish uptake of its booster shot.

The first patient was inoculated with the vaccine this week in early clinical trials, with a total of 180 patients expected to get the dose.

Using mRNA technology popularized over the Covid pandemic, the shot targets BA.4 and BA.5 variants as well as four strains of the flu.

Vaccine maker Moderna is also testing a vaccine targeting Covid and flu, as well as one for these viruses and RSV — behind America’s winter wave. None are expected to be ready for this year’s flu season.

Uptake of the updated bivalent booster vaccine is lagging in the US, with just a handful of Americans who are eligible coming forward.

The above graph shows the number of positive tests for RSV viruses by date in the United States. It reveals they have now reached their highest levels since 2020, before the pandemic began. Data is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Pfizer revealed that the first patient was injected in its Phase 1 trials — the earliest clinical trials — this week.

These tests are to ensure the vaccine is safe and effective, but the new vaccine will need to go throughmore tests before it can be rolled out nationwide.

The trial has recruited 180 people in the US who are between 18 and 64 years old and will be followed for six months.

Annaliesa Anderson, chief scientific officer in vaccine research and development at Pfizer, said mRNA technology was ‘well suited’ to tackling other viruses.

‘Pfizer is deeply proud of our continued work to explore its potential to protect against influenza and Covid in one combination vaccine,’ she said.

‘We think [this] could simplify immunisation practices against these two respiratory pathogens, potentially leading to better vaccine uptake for both diseases.

‘Even with existing seasonal influenza vaccines, the burden of this virus is severe across the world causing thousands of deaths and hospitalisations every year.’

Currently the flu vaccine is rolled out every year to shore up immunity against the virus among those who are more vulnerable.

But scientists expect the Covid shot will also be needed annually, spurring efforts to combine them to avoid the need for two vaccines.

This autumn the US Government began rolling out an updated bivalent booster vaccine, that targets Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5.

But uptake has been slow with just 22million of the 226million eligible — or 10 per cent — having come forward more than a month into the roll out.

Medics have blamed a general sense of the Covid pandemic being over for the low uptake.