Pfizer’s top boss has tested positive for Covid-19 more than two-and-a-half years since the beginning of the global pandemic.
Albert Bourla, the company’s chairman and CEO, said he had tested positive for Covid-19 and was experiencing mild symptoms on Monday.
“I would like to let you know that I have tested positive for Covid-19, ‘’ he wrote in a Twitter thread announcing his positivity. “I am isolating and have started a course of Paxlovid.”
As well as Paxlovid, the recently authorised antiviral drug for Covid-19, Mr Bourla has already received four doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The Pfizer boss became fully vaccinated in March 2021 after receiving his two doses of the Covid vaccine, and he later had two boosters.
He added on Twitter that he was assured of a quick recovery because of his vaccination status and “was feeling quite well” despite having mild symptoms.
“We have come so far in our efforts to battle this disease that I am confident I will have a speedy recovery,” Mr Bourla wrote, adding: “I am incredibly grateful for the tireless efforts of my Pfizer colleagues who worked to make vaccines and treatments available for me and people around the world.”
More than 128 million people in the United States have been fully vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, which was first announced in November 2020 before being rolled out to those most at risk from 14 December 2020.
Mr Bourla told CNBC in late 2020 that he would wait his turn for a vaccine and until frontline workers had been vaccinated before getting his, with other Pfizer executives not cutting in line. He was 59-years-old at the time.
Scientists say the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine still offers good protection against hospitalisation and serious illness more than a year and half since it was developed.
Pfizer and other vaccine producers have been working to update Covid vaccines to target different variants of the disease which has killed an estimated 6.4m people globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Paxlovid, an antiviral drug, was authorised for emergency use in the US in July and has since been taken by US President Joe Biden after he tested positive for Covid last month.
The drug has been shown in studies to be extremely effective at preventing serious illness if it is taken in the first few days of a Covid diagnosis.
Sales of Paxlovid and Comirnaty, another drug made by Pfizer, generated a reported $17m in sales for Pfizer in the first quarter of the year.
Pfizer was accused of profiteering from the Covid-19 pandemic earlier this year after a doubling in revenue was announced in February after the Covid-19 vaccine see sales for the company reach nearly $37bn in 2021.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press
