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 for the mix in guide­lines com­ing out of its De­cem­ber 7 meet­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the WHO, 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.

The Sinopharm vac­cine is an in­ac­ti­vat­ed vac­cine while the Pfiz­er is an mR­NA.
Its rec­om­men­da­tions al­so al­low for the As­traZeneca vac­cine to be ad­min­is­tered af­ter Pfiz­er and vice-ver­sa.

Re­porter: Rishard Khan