LONDON (AP) – A leading group of British doctors says the UK government should “urgently review” its decision to give people a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine within 12 weeks of the first, instead of shorter interval recommended by the manufacturer and the World Health Organization.
The UK, which has the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Europe, has adopted the policy to give as many people as possible a first dose of the vaccine quickly. So far, almost 5.5 million people have received a vaccine manufactured by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and BioNTech from Germany or a vaccine developed by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
AstraZeneca said it believes that a first dose of its vaccine offers protection after 12 weeks, but Pfizer says it has not tested its vaccine’s effectiveness after such a long interval.
The British Medical Association on Saturday urged England’s medical director to “urgently review the UK’s current position on second doses after 12 weeks”
In a statement, the association said there was “growing concern among the medical profession over the postponement of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as Britain’s strategy has become increasingly isolated from many other countries.”
“No other nation has taken the UK approach,” Dr. Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the BMA board, told the BBC.
He said that WHO recommended that Pfizer’s second vaccine could be applied within six weeks of the first, but only “in exceptional circumstances”.
“I understand the compensation and the logic, but if that were the right thing to do, we would see other nations following suit,” said Nagpaul.
Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, defended the decision as “a reasonable scientific balance based on the supply and also the protection of most people”.
Researchers in Britain have started taking blood samples from newly vaccinated people to study how many antibodies they are producing at different intervals, from 3 weeks to 24 months, to get an answer to the question about when is the best time for injections.
The doctors’ concern came a day after government medical advisers said there was evidence that a new variant of the virus first identified in southeastern England carries a greater risk of death than the original strain.
The head of the scientific council, Patrick Vallance, said on Friday “that there is evidence that there is an increased risk for those who have the new variant”, which is also more transmissible than the original virus. He said the new strain could be about 30% more deadly, but stressed that “the evidence is not yet strong” and more research is needed.
Research by British scientists who advise the government He said that although initial analyzes suggested that the strain did not cause more serious illnesses, several more recent ones suggest that it did. However, the number of deaths is relatively small and lethality rates are affected by many things, including the care that patients receive and their age and health, in addition to having COVID-19.
Britain recorded 95,981 deaths among people who tested positive, the highest number of confirmed viruses in Europe.
The UK is in a blockade to try to slow the latest outbreak of the virus, and the government says the end of the restrictions will not come soon. Pubs, restaurants, gyms, entertainment venues and many stores are closed, and people are forced to stay at home.
The British government is considering restricting quarantine requirements for people arriving from abroad. Travelers should be isolated for 10 days, but the application is irregular. Authorities are considering requiring that judges stay in quarantined hotels, a practice adopted in other countries, including Australia.
“We may need to go further to protect our borders,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday.
___
Follow the coverage of the coronavirus pandemic AP at:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak