schema:articleBody
| - Finnish health chiefs on Wednesday recommended administering the two doses of all Covid-19 vaccines at a 12-week interval, like the UK, citing better protection with a longer gap. "A vaccinated person usually gets better protection with a longer gap between doses as the body's immunity matures and strengthens," senior doctor Hanna Nohynek of the public health authority THL said. A later second dose would also allow more people to be injected with limited vaccine supplies, affording a greater share of the population "reasonably good protection" in the meantime, Nohynek added. Manufacturers recommend that Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines be taken three weeks apart, and the AstraZeneca/Oxford jabs four to 12 weeks apart. Vaccine maker BioNTech and the US Food and Drug Administration have previously warned that not enough clinical data exists to support delaying the second dose, after countries such as the UK and Denmark decided to increase time between the two jabs. However, an Oxford University study under review by The Lancet argued Tuesday that those who had been vaccinated with a single dose of the AstraZeneca jab were 67 percent less likely to test positive with a PCR test. A single dose was also 76 percent effective in preventing virus symptoms after 22 days and for up to 90 days, rising to 82.4 percent if the second dose was administered after 12 weeks, it showed. Meanwhile, THL also recommended that the AstraZeneca inoculation only be given to people under the age of 70, echoing moves by other European countries worried about insufficient data among older users. "The recommendation will be modified if necessary as more research data on the effects of the vaccine in different age groups becomes available," THL said in a statement. Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, Bulgaria, Italy have also issued similar recommendations. Finland will therefore recommend the elderly be vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. The Nordic country of 5.5 million has one of the lowest Covid death tolls in Europe, registering 684 deaths as of Tuesday. map-sgk/po/jj
|