LONDON (Reuters) – UK COVID-19 vaccination push gained momentum on Saturday, with 5.9 million people now receiving a first dose, but doctors challenged the government over its policy of getting a second shot of Pfizer vaccine for up to 12 weeks.
The UK government is widening the gap between the first and second injection as it wants to ensure that as many people as possible can receive some protection from an initial vaccination dose.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Friday that the new British variant of COVID-19 may be linked to a higher death rate, as the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the country nears the 100,000 mark – 97,329 on Saturday.
But in a letter to Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England Chris Whitty, the British Medical Association said that abandoning the 12-week interval for the Pfizer vaccine was against the World Health Organization guidelines.
They urged the government to reduce the difference between Pfizer doses to a maximum of six weeks.
The makers of the vaccine, Pfizer and BioNTech, have warned that they have no evidence that their vaccine would remain protective if the second dose is given more than three weeks after the first.
Leaving a gap of 12 weeks will allow Britain’s vaccine program to move forward quickly.
Government data published on Saturday showed that 5.86 million people have now received a first dose of the vaccine, following a record number of 478,248 people in the past 24 hours.
Whitty said Friday that the longer wait between doses was a “public health decision,” aimed at vaccinating many more people and based on the fact that the vast majority of the protection comes from the first shot.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the decision on the 12-week period was made after “a thorough review of the data” and was in line with the recommendations of the four Chief Medical Officers in the UK.
Britain uses the Pfizer vaccine and another from AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca has supported the gap between its jabs and said data showed that an 8 to 12 week gap was a “sweet spot” for efficacy.
Following Johnson’s warnings about the new variant’s more deadly nature, some scientists said Saturday it was too early to be clear about what the evidence showed.
“The question of whether it is more dangerous in terms of mortality is still open, I think,” Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modeling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BBC.
Adaptation by Jason Neely and Helen Popper