From eight months, US authorities are now considering giving booster shots to Americans six months after their full vaccination – two doses for most, and single dose for the Janssen jab of Johnson & Johnson.
US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, whose COVID-19 vaccine was recently granted full approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, is now seeking full FDA nod as well for its booster shot. Israel, which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, has gone ahead and started giving boosters to vulnerable older citizens. So has Turkey, which said a booster of Sinovac after two doses of the Chinese-made jab appeared to be more effective than a third dose from a different brand.
Indonesia, which is battling a surge of Delta-driven COVID infections, began giving Moderna boosters to health frontliners last month, starting with those fully vaccinated with the Sinovac jab. Chinese company Sinovac itself announced this month the results of a study that it carried out, showing that a booster dose of its vaccine, administered eight months after the second dose, significantly increased resistance to the coronavirus.
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With COVID cases yesterday remaining high at 16,313 as Delta continues its spread across the Philippines, and breakthrough infections increasingly recorded among the fully vaccinated regardless of the brand, the government is also considering boosters.
With vaccines still acutely limited, however, priority is given to fully vaccinating up to 80 percent of the adult population first, and then possibly moving on to younger age groups, before boosters can be considered.
Still, boosters are increasingly looking inevitable, and the country must be ready for administering the third dose. The rollout of vaccines has been marred by disorganization, resulting in crowding in several areas that aggravated the rapid spread of the virus. There is no uniform vaccination card with security features; the Department of Information and Communications Technology is scrambling to produce the card.
At least the national government has appropriated billions in the 2022 budget for the procurement of booster shots. With the experience during the first phase of vaccination, the rollout of the boosters must be much smoother.
EDITORIAL