Members of Physicians for Human Rights join other NGOs to call for vaccine equity.
Link to the source article >> https://healthpolicy-watch.news/vaccine-equity-and-boosters-dominate-lead-up-to-bidens-covid-19-summit/
Vaccine equity and booster debates are shadowing the lead-up to US President Joe Biden’s planned COVID-19 Summit on Wednesday, with the US reportedly poised to donate another half a billion Pfizer vaccines to the world.
Israeli scientists reported that people over age 60 who received a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine were five times less likely to become severely ill if they had their first shots at least five months earlier. The findings were published last Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The findings were the largest yet on the outcomes of Israel’s booster campaign, which has so far seen 30% of its population triple vaccinated as the country battles one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the world.
The Israeli findings were regarded as a critical factor in the recommendation by the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) independent advisory panel of experts to approve a third Pfizer booster shot for people 65 years and over or at severe risk of COVID-19 and who were vaccinated at least six months or earlier.
Last Friday, the FDA expert panel voted by 16 to 2 against booster shots for those over the age of 16, and the FDA itself is expected to announce its decision on boosters this week.
A recent review in The Lancet authored by key scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other institutions argued that there was insufficient evidence to justify booster campaigns in developed countries which had already vaccinated at-risk groups with two courses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
However, the review made its case on the serious equity issues around the relative global health benefits of directing third shots to already vaccinated group, as compared to first and second jabs to never-vaccinated people.
It also relied heavily on a series of smaller, observational trials and laboratory analyses, and did not fully incorporate the Israeli results, which had only just been published in a pre-print format.
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