[ad_1]
-
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday the government should give people one injection of the COVID-19 vaccine instead of two, so people can be vaccinated faster to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
-
One dose has an effectiveness rate of 91%. The second dose increases the rate to 95%.
-
Professor David Salisbury, former head of immunization at the UK Department of Health, supported the idea: “You only earn 4% [extra protection] for giving the second dose, ”he said.
-
Some scientists said Blair’s idea was too risky, given minimal test data on how vaccines work on a single dose.
-
The UK government is studying the one-dose option, an anonymous source told The Telegraph.
-
Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
The UK government is in talks with the UK medicines regulator after former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the government to give everyone a single shot of the vaccine instead of the recommended two doses, according to The Telegraph.
The vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is the vaccine currently licensed for use in the UK, US, Canada and Europe. It is legally approved to be given in two doses, 21 days apart.
However, there is some debate as to whether it would be more effective to launch a single-dose vaccine first and then worry about the recommended second dose later.
The logistics of giving each two doses, sequentially, are daunting:
-
Prioritization takes time: All countries had to prioritize the first. There are also logistical challenges – Pfizer’s vaccine has to be stored at very cold temperatures, for example. Seven hundred and forty thousand people received their first dose of Pfizer vaccine and more than 2.4 million people were vaccinated worldwide, according to Our World in Data on Wednesday.
-
It takes months: The current UK strategy, developed with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, places those most at risk of severe COVID-19 – the elderly and healthcare workers. But it could take months before the entire population is vaccinated.
To speed up the process, Blair said that instead of giving people two vaccines, all available vaccine stock should be used to immunize people with their first dose, rather than giving people who are already immune their second. (His suggestion is part of a multi-part plan he drew up, which also urges the UK government to prepare controversial health passports.)
Pfizer said the vaccine was 95% effective in protecting against COVID-19, 28 days after the first dose, when two doses were given in trials.
But Professor David Salisbury, former head of immunization at the Department of Health – speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday – noted that a single dose can also be very effective.
“You give a dose, you get 91% [protection]. You give two doses and you get 95%. You only earn 4% for giving the second dose, ”Salisbury explained.
“Under the current circumstances, I strongly urge you to use as many first doses as possible for the risk groups and only after doing all of that come back with second doses,” he added.
He admitted, however, that the same principles do not apply to AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine – which could be approved by the UK shortly – because the efficacy of two doses is less than 60%.
Too risky? Or common sense?
Professor Peter Horby of the University of Oxford, the UK government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group – chairman of NERVTAG – told the Commons select committee on Wednesday that you can’t just assume a dose is equivalent to two doses. Current data favors two doses. He also said that we don’t know what proportion of the population needs to be immunized with a single dose to reduce the spread of the virus.
Professor Wendy Barclay, head of the infectious diseases department at Imperial College London and a member of NERVTAG, said the idea was interesting, but “too risky”.
“To change at this point would require seeing a lot more analysis of clinical trial data,” Barclay said.
However, there are experts who see certain benefits in Blair’s plan. “Live conversations” are ongoing between the UK government and the regulator, according to The Telegraph.
Professor Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, told the Telegraph on Wednesday that the move would go against normal practice, but that it made “common sense”, but no one knows not how long the immunity would last if people only got one dose.
“It makes immunological sense that a highly effective vaccine only requires a single dose, but the durability of protection is unpredictable,” Openshaw said.
“A reminder may be needed later to improve responses and make them last longer,” he added.
Read the original article on Business Insider
[ad_2]
Source link