Most Americans who received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine also received the last shot



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(Reuters) – Vaccinations of around 88% of Americans who received the first dose of Moderna’s Pfizer / BioNTech or COVID-19 vaccines had been completed, a study of more than 12 million people by the Centers for Disease Control showed and Prevention (CDC) from the United States.

The two vaccines, among the first to receive emergency use authorization in the United States, require two injections. The high efficacy of the vaccines is based on trials with an injection interval of 21 days for Pfizer Inc / BioNTech SE and 28 days for the vaccine and Moderna Inc.

According to the analysis, about 3% of people in the United States who received the first dose of either vaccine did not receive the second dose needed to complete the vaccination, the agency said on Monday. .

The agency said 8.6% had not received the second dose, but were still within the allowed range to receive it.

The analysis was conducted in 58 jurisdictions in the United States among people who received their first vaccine between December 14 and February 14. The data was published Monday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

A second analysis of 14.2 million people who received the second dose showed that 95.6% received the dose on time, the agency said.

The CDC considered a second injection on time, or within the recommended interval, if given within 17 to 25 days of the first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech and 24 to 32 days for the Moderna vaccine.

Other countries, like the UK, have extended the period between doses to months rather than weeks in order to immunize more people as they face supply shortages. U.S. public health officials have said they have no plans to change their recommendations.

(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer and Shinjini Ganguli)

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