Pfizer and BioNTech to offer COVID vaccine to volunteers who got placebo

FILE PHOTO: Syringes to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine are seen at a nursing home in Burgbernheim, Germany December 28, 2020. Picture taken December 28, 2020. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photo

(Reuters) - Pfizer Inc and its partner BioNTech Se plan to give volunteers who received a placebo in its COVID-19 vaccine trial an option to receive a first dose of the vaccine by March 1, 2021, while staying within the study.

The trial's Vaccine Transition Option allows all participants aged 16 or older the choice to discover whether they were given the placebo, "and for participants who learn they received the placebo, to have the option to receive the investigational vaccine while staying in the study," the companies said on their website https://www.covidvaccinestudy.com/participants for trial participants.