According to THE STRAITS TIMES, faced with a limited supply of shots and anxious populations waiting their turn, more countries are turning to an initially controversial strategy that has now been vindicated by scientific studies: doubling or tripling the intervals between the first and second Covid-19 vaccine dose.
A delay in getting the second shot not only allows the existing supply of shots to be more widely distributed, it boosts their protective power by giving the immune system more time to respond to the first inoculation. Levels of antibodies produced to fight off the virus are 20 per cent to 300 per cent higher when the follow-up vaccine comes later, new research shows.
THE STRAITS TIMES says, that is welcome news for places like Singapore, which is grappling with a rare, albeit small, rise in cases after strict mitigation measures contained the virus last year. The city-state is now extending dose intervals - previously three to four weeks - to six to eight weeks, in order to reach a goal of covering its entire adult population with at least one shot by the end of August. India, facing a catastrophic outbreak, is advising 12 to 16 weeks between shots.
Other nations in similar straits - with few vaccine doses and antsy populations - are likely to follow.
"If I could, I would push a button that says right now, this second, we give one dose to everybody we can reach," Dr Gregory Poland, a virologist and director of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group. "We'll get around to second doses later."
"In the midst of a world on fire, you put out as many fires as you can, as quickly as you can," Dr Poland said.
THE STRAITS TIMES mentions, the reassuring evidence on longer dosing intervals was not available when the vaccine roll-out first started at the end of last year. Then, countries limited their use to the highest-risk people and guaranteed a second shot was waiting for those segments.
Britain was the first to abandon those constraints amid a massive outbreak last year(2020) - a move that was initially criticized but has now proved prescient.
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