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Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday that the government should give people one injection of the COVID-19 vaccine instead of two, so that people can be immunized more quickly to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
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One dose has a 91% effectiveness rate. The second dose increases the rate to 95%.
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Professor David Salisbury, former head of immunization at the UK Department of Health, supported the idea: “You are only earning 4% [extra protection] to give the second dose, “he said.
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Some scientists said Blair’s idea was too risky, given minimal experimental data on how vaccines work with a single dose.
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The UK government is considering a dose option, an unnamed source told The Telegraph.
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The British government is in talks with the UK drug regulator after former British Prime Minister Tony Blair asked the government to give everyone a single injection of the vaccine instead of the two recommended doses, according to The Telegraph .
The vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is the vaccine currently licensed for use in the United Kingdom, USA, Canada and Europe. It is legally approved to be administered in two doses, 21 days apart.
However, there is debate about whether it would be more efficient to launch a single dose first and then worry about the second recommended dose.
The logistics of giving everyone two doses, sequentially, is scary:
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Prioritization takes time: All countries had to prioritize who receives first. There are also logistical challenges – the Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored at very low temperatures, for example. Seven hundred and forty thousand people were injected with their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and more than 2.4 million people were immunized worldwide, according to Our World in Data on Wednesday.
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It takes months: The UK’s current strategy, developed with the Joint Vaccination and Immunization Committee, puts those most at risk of contracting severe COVID-19 first – the elderly and healthcare professionals. But it can take months for the entire population to be immunized.
To speed up the process, Blair said that instead of giving people two injections, all available vaccine stock should be used to immunize people with the first dose, rather than giving people already immunized the second. (His suggestion is part of a multi-part plan that he drafted, which also calls on 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 administered in tests.
But Professor David Salisbury, a former immunization chief at the Department of Health – speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday – noted that a single dose can also be highly effective.
“You give a dose and get 91% [protection]. You give two doses and get 95%. You are earning only 4% to give the second dose, “explained Salisbury.
“With the current circumstances, I strongly recommend that you use as many first doses as you can for at-risk groups and only after you have done all of that, come back with the second doses,” he added.
He, however, acknowledged that the same principles do not apply to AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine – which could be approved in the UK soon – because the effectiveness of two doses is 60% less.
Very dangerous? Or common sense?
Professor Peter Horby of the University of Oxford, the UK government’s new and emerging respiratory virus threat advisory group – chairman of NERVTAG – told the selected Commons committee on Wednesday that you cannot assume that a dose is so good as two. Current data favor two doses. He also said that we do not know how much of the population should be immunized with one dose to reduce the spread of the virus.
Professor Wendy Barclay, head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London and a member of NERVTAG said the idea was interesting, but “very risky”.
“To change this point, it would be necessary to see much more analysis of clinical trial data,” said Barclay.
However, there are experts who see some benefits in Blair’s plan. “Live conversations” are now taking place between the government and the UK 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 it made “good sense”, but it was unclear how long immunity would last if people receive only one dose.
“It makes immunological sense that a highly effective vaccine may need only one dose, but the durability of the protection is unpredictable,” said Openshaw.
“Reinforcement may be needed later to improve responses and make them last longer,” he added.
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