UK expands trial to gauge effect of mixing COVID-19 vaccines

Researchers are exploring whether existing vaccines can be used ‘more flexibly’ in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

A study in the United Kingdom into using different COVID-19 vaccines in two-dose inoculations is being expanded to include shots made by Moderna and Novavax, researchers say. The trial, known as the Com-Cov study, was first launched in February to look at whether giving a first dose of one type of COVID-19 shot and a second dose of another, elicits an immune response that is as good as using two doses of the same vaccine. The idea, said Matthew Snape, the Oxford University professor leading the trial, “is to explore whether the multiple COVID-19 vaccines that are available can be used more flexibly”.