Sands Gets 3rd Vaccine Shot for Stronger Immune Response Against COVID-19
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Former Minister of Health Duane Sands received a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine after he got two shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Sands revealed his decision to mix and match vaccines during his presentation in the House of Assembly as he made his case for COVID-19 vaccines as infections surge in the country.
It is not known the time frame in which Sands received the booster shot of Pfizer but he said it became necessary as a doctor working with COVID-19 patients.
“I like many other people are fully vaccinated. But because I happen to spend so much time in the belly of the beast…I have gone a little bit further. So I have received two AstraZeneca shots and one Pfizer shot.”
Sands said he does not suggest that individuals take three shots, but he is convinced that vaccination is an integral part of getting out of the pandemic.
“If we are going to get out of this mess, then vaccination is going to be a critical part of the way forward.”
Experts vary on whether or not people should mix and match vaccines.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization advised against mixing and matching doses due to a lack of evidence.
WHO’s chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan cautioned that taking additional doses beyond the two-dose regimen or mixing and matching vaccines is “a little bit of a dangerous trend.”
However, experts like Dr. Vin Gupta, a professor at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said he is advising patients who got J&J to get a Pfizer or Moderna mRNA dose to combat delta.
Researchers from Oxford University recently published findings that combining the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine generates a “robust” immune response against the virus.
