By Sue-Ann Wayow
INDIVIDUALS who received a primary dose of the Covid-19 vaccine will more than likely have to get a booster shot.
This means they will be administered four doses of a vaccine if they received an initial two-dose regime.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram explained the difference between a booster shot and a primary dose of the vaccine at the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 update on Wednesday.
He acknowledged that there were some who were still confused about the terminologies.
Dr Parasram said, “ The primary additional dose is meant to get to your primary series up to a point where the immunity that you have is considered adequate.”
This was done for persons in the immunocompromised population.
“The difference between that and the booster programme is really the augmentation of the primary series to bring it up to what the level of someone else who is not immunocompromised would have had. For example, we use the example before of someone over 60 for Sinopharm, we are expecting those persons across the board to have three shots,” he said.
And Dr Parasram added, “In terms of requiring a fourth shot thereafter, I think the data is still out but at least from a theoretical perspective if you have a primary additional dose making your series complete, it will therefore mean that you will need an additional shot as a booster. In terms of the timeline, it will probably align to what is going on now, meaning six months for most vaccines, two to six months for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.”
