Expert questioned about British COVID-19 vaccination plan

Expert questioned about British COVID-19 vaccination plan. UK: 12 weeks between two doses of COVID-19 vaccine? The British COVID-19 vaccination plan has been questioned.

The British Medical Association said on the 23rd that they have sent a letter to Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer of England, calling on the British government to change the vaccination plan and shorten the maximum interval between two doses of Pfizer vaccine from the current 12 weeks to 6 weeks.　　

The British Medical Association said in a statement that day that they had written to Whitty, deeming it necessary to “urgently review” the British vaccination program. The statement reads that the interval between the two doses of vaccination is more than 6 weeks “not in line with the guidelines of the World Health Organization” and “no other country is like the United Kingdom” with a 12-week interval.　　

“In addition, members of the Medical Association are concerned that the vaccine supply capacity is unpredictable, and there is no guarantee that people will wait 12 weeks to get the second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine.” 　　

The British government is using two COVID-19 vaccines, one is jointly developed by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. of the United States and the German Biotech Company, and the other is jointly developed by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals of the United Kingdom and the University of Oxford. The third COVID-19 vaccine approved by the United Kingdom was developed by Moderna of the United States and will not be put into use until this spring.　　

The situation in the UK’s COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control is grim. In the context of running out of medical resources, the British government hopes to vaccinate more people with the first dose of the vaccine, so it will be proposed shortly after the start of the vaccination program. The maximum interval between the two doses of the two vaccines currently used is 12 weeks.　　

The British Ministry of Health and Social Care said that the government has established a 12-week time limit after conducting a comprehensive analysis of the initial vaccination data and listening to the advice of the chief medical officers of the four British regions. Whitty explained at a press conference on the 22nd that “most of the protective effects of the vaccine come from the first dose.”　　

Pfizer and Biotech’s recommended vaccination interval is 21 days. They previously warned that at present “there is no evidence that the vaccine can still play a protective role if the second dose is injected three weeks later.”　　

AstraZeneca has no objection to the arrangement of the British government. The British pharmaceutical company said that the data showed that the company’s vaccine dose 8 to 12 weeks apart does not affect the effectiveness of the vaccine.　　

The United Kingdom reported the discovery of a mutated new coronavirus in December last year, which is believed to accelerate the spread of the epidemic in parts of the UK. According to data released by the British government on the 22nd, the country’s cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19 are close to 3.6 million, the fifth highest in the world and the highest in Europe; the cumulative number of deaths is close to 96,000; in the past 7 days, the UK has reported a total of 8686 new cases of COVID-19 deaths. For example, it was 16% higher than the previous week.　　

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on the 22nd that about 5.4 million people in the UK have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

(source:internet, reference only)

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