‘No gain’ in reducing interval between doses of Covid vaccine

A nurse preparing a Covid-19 vaccine
PA Wire

There is no “gain” in reducing the gap between receiving the first and second doses of a Covid vaccine, an expert has claimed.

Professor Anthony Harnden, deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, explained a longer gap provides “much better protection”.

He told Times Radio: “We've looked at this data very carefully over the last few days and it is quite clear, from the AstraZeneca vaccine, there is absolutely no doubt that the longer interval gives you much better protection.

“But we concentrated on the Pfizer vaccine because of course that's one that's being given to younger people at the moment.

“And it's quite clear from antibody T cells studies that you get much lower response, and poorer quality memory response, with the shorter interval - that's a four-week interval compared to an eight to 12-week interval.”

Several vaccination centres across the UK have been offering second jabs earlier than the recommended eight-week interval ahead of the dropping of restrictions on July 19.

Younger patients have been able to attend walk-in patients to get a second vaccine early in some areas as the NHS races to protect against the Delta variant of coronavirus.

“And the actual real data vaccine effectiveness studies show that there is a lower vaccine efficacy against symptomatic disease with shorter intervals compared to longer intervals,” Prof Harnden added.

“And then we got the modellers to look at this and, actually, the number of infections will rise if we reduce the dose. We just don't think there's any good short, or longer term gain by shortening the interval.”

Meanwhile officials are “concerned” about the uptake of first doses among younger age groups.

Prof Harnden said uptake of jabs among younger age groups may increase if vaccines are more accessible and are backed by role models.

Asked whether the England team could be part of an advertising campaign, he said: “I think it’d be a brilliant idea – the England team have captured the whole country’s attention over the last four weeks.

“And many of them, the young role models … I think it would be wonderful if they were able to contribute in some sort of way to encouraging young, particularly young men, to be vaccinated.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in