WHO: Mix-matching jabs still dangerous
GENEVA—World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus bewailed some countries ordering millions of vaccine doses for booster shots while other nations have yet to get jabs for their health workers and vulnerable people. The WHO’s chief scientist also advised against mixing and matching vaccines, calling it a “dangerous trend” due to the lack of data about its impact on health.
GENEVA—Rich countries should not be ordering booster shots for their vaccinated populations while other countries have yet to receive COVID-19 vaccines, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said‚ “The global gap in COVID-19 vaccine supply is hugely uneven and inequitable. Some countries and regions are actually ordering millions of booster doses, before other countries have had supplies to vaccinate their health workers and most vulnerable,” said Tedros.
He noted the spread of the Delta variant first detected in India and now found in 104 countries.
He singled out vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna as companies that were aiming to provide booster shots in countries where there were already high levels of vaccination. Tedros said they should instead direct their doses to COVAX, the vaccine sharing program mainly for middle-income and poorer countries.
Israel on Monday began administering a third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to patients with compromised immune systems, as cases in the country rise, the health ministry said.
The WHO’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said the global health body had so far not seen evidence showing that booster shots were necessary for those who have received a full course of vaccines. While boosters may be necessary one day, there was no evidence they were needed yet.
Evidence needed
“It has to be based on the science and the data, not on individual companies declaring that their vaccines need to be administered as a booster dose,” she said.
Swaminathan also advised against people mixing and matching COVID-19 vaccines from different manufacturers, calling it a “dangerous trend” since there was little data available about the health impact.
“It’s a little bit of a dangerous trend here. We are in a data-free, evidence-free zone as far as mix and match,” she said.