Lyme disease vaccine: Pfizer begins a late-stage clinical trial
Is there a Lyme disease vaccine? Pfizer started a phase 3 clinical trial of its Lyme disease vaccine. Lyme disease is spreading because of climate change.
Pfizer has started a late-stage clinical trial to test a vaccine that aims to protect against Lyme disease, the drugmaker announced Monday.
There are currently no vaccines approved in the United States for the tick-borne illness, which infects an estimated 476,000 people in the U.S. each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If Pfizer’s trial succeeds, the vaccine could be the first human inoculation available for Lyme disease in the U.S. in two decades. Only one other vaccine for the disease, LYMErix, has been used in the country, but it was discontinued in 2002.
“With increasing global rates of Lyme disease, providing a new option for people to help protect themselves from the disease is more important than ever,” Annaliesa Anderson, Pfizer's head of vaccine research and development, said in a statement.
Pfizer said it aims to enroll approximately 6,000 healthy adults and children 5 and older in the phase 3 trial, which will evaluate whether the vaccine is safe and effective.
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