Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has quietly changed its guidelines on Covid-19 vaccine shots. The agency provides OK (Agree) recommendations for mixing between the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in exceptional circumstances.
The CDC also decided to recommend a longer time, up to six weeks to get a second dose of one of the companies’ vaccines.
Meanwhile, the recommendations from the two companies are even shorter, even though the vaccines produced by these two companies use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. Pfizer provides a recommended time of 21 days and Moderna 28 days to wait until the second dose of vaccination.
The CDC’s new vaccination guidelines say that while every effort should be made to ensure patients receive the same vaccine, this freedom is granted in rare situations.
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Photo: Infographics / Chinese Vaccine vs US Vaccine / Edward Ricardo- – |
The conditions referred to are the availability of vaccines in a time interval of at least 28 days if the supply is limited or if the patient does not know what kind of vaccine he / she received beforehand.
However, the CDC says the two products are not interchangeable and admits that it has not studied whether its new recommendations will change the safety or effectiveness of either vaccine.
However, vaccine research specialists say that the two vaccines are very similar in design so that people don’t have to worry about the rare occurrence where doses will be mixed.
“The aim is not to suggest people do something different, but to give doctors flexibility for extraordinary circumstances,” said Jason McDonald, a spokesman for the CDC, quoted by CNBC, Saturday (23/1/2021).
The CDC also mentions that health care providers should provide vaccination record cards telling them when they received the first injection and what type of injection it was to help ensure that patients know which injection they should receive the second time around.
The agency also recommends that the service include patient vaccination information in their medical records and government immunization information systems.
This guidance update from the CDC was released after several cities and counties across the US canceled immunization appointments because they did not have a dosage to order.
For example, Wayne County, Michigan said last week that they would ensure that people who get their first and second shots are on time. But the region was forced to cancel nearly 1,400 promises of the first injection of its citizens.
For information, the vaccines from both companies require two doses to achieve maximum protection from the corona virus.
Epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Dr. Bill Schaffner said the two vaccines are very similar, so there is no reason to think that there would be an adverse reaction to mixing the vaccines.
He said it was important for the CDC to issue these guidelines because the nationwide vaccine registration systems, run by the states, were of varying quality. So some information might be lost, leaving people not knowing which vaccine they received.
Additionally some people may travel across state lines and receive their second dose in a different state, further complicating matters.
“Although this mixing and matching, as we call it, has not been studied specifically, there is no biological reason for this not working and can be justified,” he said.
Director of the CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Dr. Nancy Messonnier revealed that the CDC agrees with what the FDA said and the FDA has made very clear mention of the CDC using an approved regimen.
“It is deeply rooted in science and the evidence available, and doing something different from that means it doesn’t follow science and potentially doesn’t allow us to really realize the full potential of this vaccine,” he said.
(dru)
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