Healthcare workers lined up slowly this week for a booster shot of the J&J Covid-19 vaccine, with about 6,000 getting a second dose of the vaccine after it became available, said Prof Glenda Gray on Friday.
The Sisonke 2 study, led by Gray and Prof Linda-Gail Bekker, from Wednesday offered healthcare workers a booster shot of the J&J vaccine ahead of a fourth wave predicted for summer.
The J&J vaccine is a single-dose regimen, which means an individual is fully vaccinated after only one shot. This has made it the workhorse for vaccinating members of the essential services, such as teachers and the police, and residents of rural areas.could inform the government’s decisions about the timing of booster shots in 2022, said Gray.
“We know the immune response of vaccines go down after six to eight months and healthcare workers are likely to see an increase in Covid-19 cases by the end of December, or January or later, but it is going to happen — and they need to be protected.” Gray said that healthcare workers may get a choice of the Pfizer vaccine in future, but they did not want to delay the start of Sisonke 2 by a possible six to eight weeks for this.At a briefing, Bekker said: “The good news is that we are not removing any doses from the national programme to do Sisonke 2.”
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