Gov’t experts advise against shortening gap between doses

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The government’s vaccine advisers are opposed to a suggestion by a group of analysts to shorten the interval between the first and second doses of COVID-19 shots to speed up the mass inoculation drive amid the threat of the Delta variant of coronavirus.

“A shorter span [between doses] will generate antibodies but [the level] will go down. The amount of antibodies will be high but not much. But the longer the interval, the more [antibodies] there will be and it will take longer before [the level] goes down,” Gloriani said at a press briefing arranged by the Department of Health on Thursday.Instead of shortening the interval, the panel recommended increasing the target coverage of vaccination in the face of the Delta variant threat.

“We do have a variant that is highly transmissible. It will not be enough just to target 65 percent to 70 percent [of the population for] herd immunity,” said Dr. Rontgene Solante, chief of San Lazaro Hospital’s adult infectious diseases and tropical medicine section and one of the panel members. “[W]e want to come up with some recommendation soon, maybe by next week, at least for some of our health-care workers and those who are immunocompromised,” she said at a Palace briefing.Gloriani said a study of the Chinese-made Sinovac Biotech vaccine showed that antibodies produced six months after the second dose had declined.

Solante said that should there be booster shots, these should only be given to the elderly, HIV-positive individuals, cancer patients with HIV and people who take immunosuppressive drugs like post-transplant patients and those with chronic kidney diseases.Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the government was prepared to buy booster shots in 2022.

 

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