PRETORIA – Germany is recommending that all people who get a first shot of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine switch to a different type of vaccine for their second shot, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.
The broadcaster said that the country’s health Minister Jens Spahn agreed with his colleague on the vaccination recommendation.
In a statement, the committee said according to current study results, the immune response from a mixture of AstraZeneca with an mRNA vaccine was significantly superior to that from two doses of AstraZeneca, wrote the news channel.
Al Jazeera said the The German Standing Committee on Vaccination (STIKO) recommended that the second dose with an mRNA vaccine, be administered four weeks or more after the first AstraZeneca shot.
In June, German Chancellor Angela Merkel received a dose of Moderna as her second shot of Covid-19 vaccine after having Oxford-AstraZeneca as her first, the BBC reported.
The news channel said Merkel, 66, took her first dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in April, more than two weeks after German authorities recommended the use of the jab only for people aged 60 and above.
In April, Merkel's spokesperson tweeted a photo of her vaccination certificate.
Kanzlerin #Merkel: „Ich freue mich, dass ich heute die Erstimpfung mit AstraZeneca bekommen habe. Ich danke allen, die sich in der Impfkampagne engagieren – und allen, die sich impfen lassen. Das Impfen ist der Schlüssel, um die Pandemie zu überwinden.“ pic.twitter.com/P4kMJYNrlc
— Steffen Seibert (@RegSprecher) April 16, 2021
CNN cited STIKO saying that current study results show the immune response generated after a mixed dose vaccination "is clearly superior."
The US broadcaster said according to a University of Oxford press release, the paper found that both mixed schedules (Pfizer-BioNTech followed by Oxford-AstraZeneca, and Oxford-AstraZeneca followed by Pfizer-BioNTech) induced high concentrations of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG protein when doses were administered four weeks apart.
European Medicines Agency said in a press briefing on Thursday that although they are “not in a position to make any definitive recommendation on the use of different Covid-19 vaccines for the two doses" there is a "strong scientific rationale" behind the approach, CNN wrote in its report.
– African News Agency