FEARS OVER FAIR EXAM RESULTS
SOME patients in a Welsh health board area are receiving second doses of the Astra-Zeneca Covid-19 vaccine more than 12 weeks after getting their first jab, it has been confirmed.
A health service whistleblower who works in Pembrokeshire, within the Hywel Dda University Health Board area, contacted us and asked: “Can you find any evidence that it’s OK to have the second jab up to 15 weeks apart?
“I’ve tried and failed, yet that is the reality here in Pembrokeshire.”
Told that our understanding that the policy was to give the second jab no later than 12 weeks after the first, the whistleblower said: “All I know is we are delivering second jabs to over-75s next week.
“Loads of people ringing us saying they will be over their 12 weeks. Been told it’s now OK to say up to 15 weeks, as we can evidence that.
“I came home and googled it and can’t find any evidence.
“We haven’t had enough delivery from Hywel Dda to provide second Astra-Zeneca jabs in time.
“Apparently our demographics are challenging here, but surely that is about planning accordingly.”
Hywel Dda confirmed that people in the 75 to 79 age group were being invited to have their vaccine at mass vaccination centres.
Rhian Bond, assistant director of primary care at Hywel Dda, said: “Up to and including this week’s deliveries, practices have been issued with 53,620 vaccines to delivery second doses to patients in cohorts 1, 2 and 4a which is a population of 51,71.; their delivery next week will give them enough vaccine to complete patients in cohort P4b – this would all be in line with a recall time of 12 weeks.”
Ros Jervis, executive director of public health at Hywel Dda, said: “The health board does not have a policy of giving second vaccine doses to patients over 12 weeks as a matter of course – nor have we instructed our GPs to do so.
“Most patients can expect to be invited to have their second dose of the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine around 11 weeks after their first dose, and this remains our target in line with national delivery.
“However, in some exceptional cases, if a patient isn’t physically able to attend for their second vaccine – for example, due to illness we have advised our GPs that it is still safe and effective to vaccinate slightly beyond this period rather than begin the whole process again.
“This is because emerging clinical evidence has shown that the Astra-Zeneca vaccine is still highly effective within this timeframe.”
The health board sent us a link to an article in the medical journal The Lancet, which discussed the effectiveness of the Astra-Zeneca Covid vaccine and the issue of the gap between two doses.
The article stated: “The analysis presented here provides strong evidence for the efficacy of two standard doses of the vaccine, which is the regimen approved by the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and other regulators.
“Exploratory analyses are presented in this report that show protection with dosing intervals from less than six weeks to 12 weeks or more and that a longer interval provides better protection after a booster dose without compromising protection in a threemonth period before the second dose is administered.
“With the evidence available at this time, it is anticipated that a second dose is still required to potentiate long-lived immunity. Recent modelling of delayed boosting suggests that even in the presence of substantial waning of first-dose efficacy, programmes that delay a second dose to vaccinate a larger proportion of the population result in greater immediate overall population protection.”
The article concludes: “Vaccination programmes aimed at vaccinating a large proportion of the population with a single dose, with a second dose given after a threemonth period, might be an effective strategy for reducing disease, and might have advantages over a programme with a short primeboost interval for roll-out of a pandemic vaccine when supplies are scarce in the short term.”
No mention was made about leaving up to 15 weeks between two vaccine doses.