Rishard Khan
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health has re­vised its vac­ci­na­tion pol­i­cy in light of new rec­om­men­da­tions emerg­ing from the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) yes­ter­day. Among the changes, peo­ple who re­ceived any com­bi­na­tion of WHO-ap­proved vac­cines will be con­sid­ered ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed. It will al­so al­low peo­ple to choose which vac­cine they re­ceive as a boost­er.

Since the Min­istry of Health an­nounced its boost­er pro­gramme which rolled out on Mon­day, queries have poured in from the pub­lic for those vac­ci­nat­ed with Sinopharm to re­ceive a Pfiz­er dose as a boost­er. The Min­istry of Health ex­plained this was not al­lowed due to the com­bi­na­tion not be­ing ap­proved by the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO).

How­ev­er, the WHO’s Strate­gic Ad­vi­so­ry Group of Ex­perts on Im­mu­ni­sa­tion (WHO-SAGE) gave its nod of ap­proval yes­ter­day for the mix in guide­lines com­ing out of its De­cem­ber 7 meet­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the WHO-SAGE, it “sup­ports a flex­i­ble ap­proach to us­ing ei­ther ho­mol­o­gous (sin­gle plat­form) or het­erol­o­gous (mix and match) vac­ci­na­tion sched­ules.”

Among these were for an in­ac­ti­vat­ed WHO-ap­proved vac­cine to be fol­lowed by an mR­NA WHO-ap­proved vac­cine.

“Coun­tries im­ple­ment­ing WHO EUL in­ac­ti­vat­ed vac­cines for ini­tial dos­es may con­sid­er us­ing WHO EUL vec­tored or mR­NA vac­cines for sub­se­quent dos­es, de­pend­ing on prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty,” it said.

Sinopharm is an in­ac­ti­vat­ed vac­cine while Pfiz­er is an mR­NA. The rec­om­men­da­tion al­so means Sinopharm can be boost­ed with John­son and John­son. It al­so al­lows for the As­traZeneca vac­cine to be ad­min­is­tered af­ter Pfiz­er and vice-ver­sa.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the min­istry said the rec­om­men­da­tions will be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the na­tion­al pro­gramme.

“The pub­lic is al­so ad­vised that any WHO-ap­proved COVID-19 vac­cine may be used as a boost­er dose for an­oth­er COVID-19 vac­cine. (eg the Pfiz­er COVID-19 vac­cine may be used as a boost­er for per­sons who have re­ceived 2 dos­es of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vac­cine),” it said.

“Mem­bers of the pub­lic are asked to con­sult with their health­care provider to de­ter­mine which vac­cine is ap­pro­pri­ate for each in­di­vid­ual, in or­der to make an in­formed de­ci­sion. Don’t de­lay… vac­ci­nate to­day!”

Due to the new ap­proval for dos­es to be in­ter­changed, the min­istry al­so said a per­son with any com­bi­na­tion will be con­sid­ered ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed which has wider im­pli­ca­tions for the trav­el pass.

“These changes will there­fore be re­flect­ed in the COVID-19 vac­cines and vac­cine com­bi­na­tions which are ac­cept­ed for both the TT Safe Zone ini­tia­tive and for en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go. This means that per­sons who re­ceived 2 dos­es of any com­bi­na­tion of WHO ap­proved COVID-19 vac­cines with a 2-dose reg­i­men will now be con­sid­ered ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed two weeks af­ter re­ceipt of the fi­nal dose. Per­sons who re­ceived a sin­gle dose of a John­son & John­son vac­cine will con­tin­ue to be con­sid­ered ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed two weeks af­ter re­ceipt of the vac­cine,” it said.