University of Oxford Leads 'Alternating' COVID-19 Vaccine Study

The UK's University of Oxford announced on February 4, 2021, it is leading the first clinical trial to explore alternating different COVID-19 vaccines.

The COVID-19 Heterologous Prime Boost study, run by the National Immunisation Schedule Evaluation Consortium and backed by £7 million of UK government funding, will evaluate the feasibility of using a different vaccine for the initial ‘prime’ vaccination to the follow-up ‘booster’ vaccination.

Matthew Snape, Associate Professor in Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the University of Oxford, and Chief Investigator of the trial, said in a press release, ‘If we do show that these vaccines can be used interchangeably in the same schedule, which would greatly increase the flexibility of vaccine delivery, and could provide clues as to how to increase the breadth of protection against new virus strains.’

The trial will evaluate four different combinations of prime and booster vaccination: a first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine followed by boosting with either the Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine or a further dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, or a first dose of the Comirnaty vaccine followed by boosting with either the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine or a further dose of the Comirnaty vaccine.

These will be evaluated at two different dosing schedules: at a four-week interval for an early interim data readout and a twelve-week interval compared to current UK policy. The study will last for 13 months, and volunteers can find out more about the study at comcovstudy.org.uk.

' If the study shows promising results, the UK would formally assess the safety and efficacy of any new vaccination regimen before it would be rolled out to patients.'