(REUTERS): Britain will allow people to be given shots of different COVID-19 vaccines on rare occasions, despite a lack of evidence about the extent of immunity offered by mixing doses.
According to details, the British government has said that people could be given a mix-and-match of two COVID-19 shots if, for example, the same vaccine dose was out of stock.
“If the same vaccine is not available, or if the first product received is unknown, it is reasonable to offer one dose of the locally available product to complete the schedule,” read the new guidelines issued on New Years Eve.
It explained that there is no evidence on the interchangeability of the COVID-19 vaccines although studies are underway. The guidelines, however, added that while every effort should be made to complete the dosing regimen with the same vaccine.
Meanwhile, Head of immunisations at Public Health England Mary Ramsay said this would only happen on extremely rare occasions, and that the government was not recommending the mixing of vaccines, which require at least two doses given several weeks apart.
Britain has been at the forefront of approving the new coronavirus vaccines, becoming the first country to give emergency authorisation to the Pfizer/BioNTech and the AstraZeneca/University of Oxford vaccines last month.
Both vaccines are meant to be administered as two shots, given several weeks apart, but they were not designed to be mixed together. At least 74,000 people have died due to the COVID-19 across Britain, making it the second-highest death toll in Europe.
