The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned people against taking doses from two different COVID-19 vaccines.
WHO said while clinical trials for inter-changeability are currently underway, it is important to stick to current guidelines.
COVID-19 vaccine guidelines set by the SAGE recommend taking doses from the same vaccine if they are using a two-dose.
This advice from WHO comes at a time when Zimbabwe has announced that it will use different vaccines to inoculate citizens.
Most of the vaccines that Zimbabwe has shown interest in are two-dose.
Some people were left asking if it was possible to take doses from different vaccines since global delivery is still a challenge.
However, while WHO’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said there are reasons why interchangeability of vaccines should make sense, she was quick to say there is no data to support it.
She said in the absence of clinical data to recommend inter-changeability, people should continue with current guidelines.
“Can the two doses be from different vaccines? Well the science is evolving and changing and knowledge base is growing. And now there are ongoing clinical trials in some countries that are looking at inter-changeability
“However at the present time there isn’t enough data for us to recommend this type of interchangeability of those two-dose schedules.
“So for the time being there are policy guidelines that WHO has put out, which is the SAGE advice on how to use the vaccines.
“We have done it for Pfizer, Moderna, Astrazeneca and currently SAGE is reviewing data from the other vaccines that are in the pipeline.
“And so we need to follow that policy advice and for the time being it is recommended to have the second dose of the same vaccine that you had the first dose,”. Get more Covid-19 Stats from CovidZW.info #WhereAreOurVaccinesZW #OpenCovidContracts
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