![]() ![]() We have been following the discussions and news reports about reducing the number of doses, extending the length of time between doses, changing the dose (half-dose), or mixing and matching vaccines in order to immunize more people against COVID-19. As the first round of vaccine recipients become eligible to receive their second dose, we want to remind the public about the importance of receiving COVID-19 vaccines according to how they’ve been authorized by the FDA in order to safely receive the level of protection observed in the large randomized trials supporting their effectiveness. Two different mRNA vaccines have now shown remarkable effectiveness of about 95% in preventing COVID-19 disease in adults. Director - Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) Commissioner of Food and Drugs - Food and Drug Administration However, she cautioned that people, particularly older people, must remember that they're not fully protected against COVID-19 during the period between doses.For Immediate Release: JanuStatement From: ![]() "I feel strongly that the Canadian strategy which prioritized a single shot into as many people as possible has saved an inordinate number of lives," Kelvin said in an email to CBC News. Prof. Alyson Kelvin, a virologist at Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, agreed that the British study results support Canada's dose-spacing strategy. "In fact, we anticipated that the boost response would be improved by that extended interval." "We underscored that extending the interval between first and second doses would enable more people to benefit from the substantial protection offered by a single dose without negatively affecting the second dose boost response," Skowronski said. Danuta Skowronski of the BC Centre for Disease Control, whose research helped guide Canada's decision to extend the interval between COVID-19 vaccine shots, in an email to CBC News. "The findings are not a surprise," said Dr. 'Not a surprise,' Canadian vaccine expert saysĮxperts in Canada said the British findings show that a fundamental principle of how vaccines traditionally work appears to apply in mRNA vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech. for delaying that second dose has really paid off," Gayatri Amirthalingam, consultant epidemiologist at Public Health England, told reporters. However, taken with data showing good protection against hospitalization and death from just one shot of Pfizer vaccine, Public Health England said the study was further supportive evidence in favour of the delayed-dose approach. The authors warned against drawing conclusions on how protected individuals were based on which dosing schedule they received. The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, looked at 175 people aged between 80 and 99, and found that extending the second dose interval to 12 weeks increased the peak antibody response 3.5-fold compared to those who had it at three weeks.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |