LONDON, April 14 (Xinhua) -- A research program that investigates alternating doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine will be extended to include vaccines produced by Moderna and Novavax in a new study, the University of Oxford announced on Wednesday.

Led by the University of Oxford, the COM-COV program explores whether the multiple COVID-19 vaccines that are available can be used more flexibly, with different vaccines being used for the first and second dose.

The first study recruited 830 participants over eight sites in a two-week period in February.

In the so-called COM-COV2 study, researchers will add a further 1,050 recruits into this program, who are adults aged over 50 and have received their first or "prime" vaccination in the past eight to 12 weeks.

These volunteers, who will have received either the Oxford-AstraZeneca, or Pfizer vaccine, will be randomly allocated to receive either the same vaccine for their second dose, or a dose of the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna or Novavax.

"If we can show that these mixed schedules generate an immune response that is as good as the standard schedules, and without a significant increase in the vaccine reactions, this will potentially allow more people to complete their COVID-19 immunization course more rapidly," said Matthew Snape, associate professor in paediatrics and vaccinology at the University of Oxford, and chief investigator on the trial.

More than 32.2 million people have been given the first jab of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest official figures.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Russia, the United States as well as the European Union have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines. Enditem

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