The UK, which has Europe\u2019s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, adopted the policy in order to give as many people as possible a first dose of vaccine quickly. So far almost 5.5 million people have received a shot of either a vaccine made by US drugmaker Pfizer and Germany\u2019s BioNTech or one developed by UK-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University.<\/p>\n
AstraZeneca has said it believes a first dose of its vaccine offers protection after 12 weeks, but Pfizer says it has not tested the efficacy of its jab after such a long gap.<\/p>\n
The British Medical Association on Saturday urged England\u2019s chief medical officer to \u201curgently review the UK\u2019s current position of second doses after 12 weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, the association said there was \u201cgrowing concern from the medical profession regarding the delay of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as Britain\u2019s strategy has become increasingly isolated from many other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo other nation has adopted the UK\u2019s approach,\u201d Dr. Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the BMA council, told the BBC.<\/p>\n
He said the WHO had recommended that the second Pfizer vaccine shot could be given up to six weeks after the first but only \u201cin exceptional circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do understand the trade-off and the rationale, but if that was the right thing to do then we would see other nations following suit,\u201d Nagpaul said.<\/p>\n
Yvonne Doyle, medical director of Public Health England, defended the decision as \u201ca reasonable scientific balance on the basis of both supply and also protecting the most people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Researchers in Britain have begun collecting blood samples from newly vaccinated people in order to study how many antibodies they are producing at different intervals, from 3 weeks to 24 months, to get an answer to the question of what timing is best for the shots.<\/p>\n
The doctors\u2019 concerns came a day after government medical advisers said there was evidence that a new variant of the virus first identified in southeast England carries a greater risk of death than the original strain.<\/p>\n
Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance said Friday \u201cthat there is evidence that there is an increased risk for those who have the new variant,\u201d which is also more transmissible than the original virus. He said the new strain might be about 30 percent more deadly, but stressed that \u201cthe evidence is not yet strong\u201d and more research is needed.<\/p>\n
Research by British scientists advising the government said although initial analyses suggested that the strain did not cause more severe disease, several more recent ones suggest it might. However, the number of deaths is relatively small, and fatality rates are affected by many things, including the care that patients get and their age and health, beyond having COVID-19.<\/p>\n
Britain has recorded 95,981 deaths among people who tested positive, the highest confirmed virus toll in Europe.<\/p>\n
The UK is in a lockdown to try to slow the latest surge of the virus, and the government says an end to the restrictions will not come soon. Pubs, restaurants, gyms, entertainment venues and many shops are closed, and people are required to stay largely at home.<\/p>\n
The British government is considering tightening quarantine requirements for people arriving from abroad. Already travelers must self-isolate for 10 days, but enforcement is patchy. Authorities are considering requiring arrivals to stay in quarantine hotels, a practice adopted in other countries, including Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe may need to go further to protect our borders,\u201d Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday.<\/p>\n
Last Update: Saturday, 23 January 2021 KSA 16:47 – GMT 13:47","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A major British doctors\u2019 group says the UK government should \u201curgently review\u201d it\u2019s decision to give people a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine up to 12 weeks after the first, rather than the shorter gap recommended by the manufacturer and the World Health Organization. The UK, which has Europe\u2019s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, adopted …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-30"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2347,"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345\/revisions\/2347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euroarab-int.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}