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The San Francisco Department of Public Health will offer what it calls an “extra” dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to anyone who has received the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine, but city officials have said the move does not reflect a change in policy and does not recommend a booster injection.
“We continue to align with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and do not recommend a booster injection at this time,” SFDPH said in a statement Tuesday. “We will continue to review all new data and adjust our direction as necessary.”
The SFPDH said it is providing the vaccines to meet the special requests of people who have seen their doctors and wish to receive an additional dose with an mRNA, Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
Christopher Colwell, chief of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, confirmed in an email to NBC News that the doses would be available at the hospital’s vaccination clinics.
“We have received requests based on patients speaking to their doctors, and that is why we are allowing accommodations,” Naveena Bobba, deputy director of health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said on a call. to the press on Tuesday.
Bobba did not clarify whether recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine who request the mRNA dose will need to be referred by a physician, although she expects the doses to be administered “based on recommendations from doctor”.
Johnson & Johnson said in a statement Tuesday night that its single-dose vaccine offers two protective mechanisms – antibody and T-cell immune responses – which “persisted for eight months after vaccination, the latest time point recorded in the study so far ”.
A lab study published online last month raised concerns that the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine is not as robust in combating the disease of the coronavirus variants, including the delta variant, as the two-dose mRNA injections.
The study, which has not been peer reviewed or published in a medical journal, only looked at the response of antibodies in blood samples, the researchers said. Other crucial components of the immune response, such as T cells that can protect the body against the virus, have not been examined.
Johnson & Johnson said the research had failed to show “the full nature of immune protection.”
San Francisco health officials support the single-dose J&J vaccine and say it is very effective in fighting the coronavirus and its variants.
“The Johnson & Johnson is a good vaccine,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco director of public health at NBC Bay Area. “We will continue to administer it.”
The delta variant is the most contagious coronavirus mutant so far in the pandemic, but vaccines still offer strong protection against it. Almost all hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated.
Still, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited the delta push for its updated advice that fully vaccinated people return to wear masks indoors in areas with high transmission. The change is based on recent research suggesting that vaccinated people who are infected with the delta variant can pass it on to others, even if those vaccinated do not get seriously ill.
The Associated Press contributed.
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