COVID-19

Dosing interval to be reduced: Dr Devi

June 30, 2021 6:22 am

[Source: Ministry of Health & Medical Services]

The Ministry of Health will soon be able to reduce the gap between the first and second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from 12 weeks to eight weeks.

Vaccination Taskforce Head Doctor Rachel Devi says with the increasing number of cases, this will be an added advantage as it will provide better protection at an earlier stage.

“There was not much difference between the results for 8 weeks and 12 weeks. It showed good protection against severe disease and hospitalization. So Fiji will be moving towards 8 weeks and we will be changing this timeframe soon.”

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Doctor Devi says reducing the dosing interval will help protect the community from the increasing prevalence of delta variant.

“One of the things that we know is that the first dose provides a certain percentage of protection and the second dose comes as high as 92 percent reduction in hospitalization, severe illness, or death from COVID-19. This is mainly the delta variant for which the study was done.”

The eight weeks’ time frame has been recommended by the World Health Organization.

The Ministry is currently continuing with its vaccination drive and is warning Fijians that the COVID-19 measures and protocols in place need to be maintained despite Fijians being fully vaccinated.

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