The WHO Vaccine Expert Advisory Group has recommended that patients in certain risk groups receive an additional third dose of COVID vaccine, despite the fact that the agency had asked in August for a moratorium on these booster inoculations.
Mexican Alejandro Cravioto, president of the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE), made this announcement after the meeting held last week by this body, in which vaccination strategies against COVID-19 and other diseases, such as malaria or polio, were analyzed.
The experts also recommended that the international community the goal of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population is set against COVID-19 in mid-2022.
“It is a much higher percentage than we thought before, but given the development of the pandemic and the availability of new vaccines for younger age groups, it is a possible objective “, underlined the president of SAGE.
About the third dose (or second in the case of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine), in principle it should be administered to people with a “severely or moderately compromised immune system”, Cravioto stressed at a press conference.
The Mexican expert clarified that this recommendation applies to all vaccines approved by WHO for emergency use against COVID-19: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm y Sinovac.
In the coming days, the one from the Indian laboratory Bharat will surely join, according to Cravioto. The green light to a third dose, limited to certain groups, comes after the WHO asked in August not to administer booster doses until the end of September given the persistent inequality in the distribution of anticovid vaccines, a term that was extended, weeks later , until January 2022.
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