News > Pfizer starts Omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine trial

Pfizer starts Omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine trial

Pfizer has begun a study comparing its original COVID-19 vaccine with doses specially tweaked to match the hugely contagious omicron variant. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced the study on Tuesday. 

While omicron is more likely than previous variants to cause infection even in people who’ve been vaccinated, it’s not yet clear that a change to the vaccine recipe is needed.