Effect of Mixing Vaccines on Protection against Covid-19

Posted: January 5th, 2023

Effect of Mixing Vaccines on Protection against Covid-19

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Effect of Mixing Vaccines on Protection against Covid-19

 Introduction

This section delves into the extant literature related to the development and administration of novel covid-19 vaccines. Although the search for effective vaccines against the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus is ongoing in earnest, several vaccines have been approved for emergency application is selected segments of the population. In turn, new publications of the various tests that have been undertaken related to the efficaciousness of the promising vaccine candidates continue to emerge. This section unearths the current knowledge from published studies and reveals the gaps therein.

Review of the Literature

Kashte et al. (2021) provides an overview of the different types of Covid-19 vaccines that have been developed. They noted that since there was no decisive therapy for treating Covid-19, vaccines presented the only viable hope of mitigating the ongoing pandemic. At the time of publishing, Kashte et al. (2021) noted that covid-19 vaccines were being developed faster than the traditional ones and that 232 prospective vaccine candidates has been developed, with 9 of them having been approved in different countries under Emergency Use Authorization (UEA).  However, they argued that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 virus mutants in the United Kingdom and South Africa has complicated the vaccine development process by raising more questions than answers. These finding reinforce those by Forni and Mantovani (2021), which indicated that ten of the forty Covid-19 vaccines that were undergoing clinical assessment were in the Phase III clinical trial phase, with three of these having completed this stage. Like Kashte et al. (2021), Forni and Mantovani (2021) noted that these vaccines would be deployed with several issues having not been addressed, particularly in relation to their effectiveness against viral variants and protection of diverse population segments.

Bernal et al. (2021) reported on the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstreZeneca vaccines among 156,920 participants aged 70 years and above in England. Their study sought to compare the chances of testing positive for Covid -19 among vaccinated individuals compared to the unvaccinated ones. Their study revealed that although single doses of both vaccines prevented admission to hospital by 80% and death by 85% among infect individuals, a follower dose boosted protection against the coronavirus. One dose of vaccine demonstrated a 60-70% effectiveness while a second dose boosted it to 85-90% in preventing asymptomatic Covid-19 among elderly adults. However, the vaccinated adults were in danger of contracting Covid-19 in the first few days after vaccination as immunity was developed gradually by the body.

Kunal et al. (2021) discussed the potential benefits of mixing and matching Covd-19 vaccines considering that countries were facing challenges in acquiring sufficient quantities of one type of vaccine to administer the two recommended doss.

References

Bernal, J. L., Andrews, N., Gower, C., Robertson, C., Stowe, J., Tessier, E., … & Ramsay, M. (2021). Effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines on covid-19 related symptoms, hospital admissions, and mortality in older adults in England: test negative case-control study. BMJ, 373.

Kunal, S., Sakthivel, P., Gupta, N., & Ish, P. (2021). Mix and match COVID-19 vaccines: potential benefit and perspective from India. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 1-3. doi:10.1136/postgradmedj-2021-140648

Forni, G., & Mantovani, A. (2021). COVID-19 vaccines: where we stand and challenges ahead. Cell Death & Differentiation, 28(2), 626-639.

Kashte, S., Gulbake, A., El-Amin III, S. F., & Gupta, A. (2021). COVID-19 vaccines: rapid development, implications, challenges and future prospects. Human Cell, 1-23.

Kim, J. H., Marks, F., & Clemens, J. D. (2021). Looking beyond COVID-19 vaccine phase 3 trials. Nature Medicine, 27(2), 205-211.

Moghadas, S. M., Vilches, T. N., Zhang, K., Nourbakhsh, S., Sah, P., Fitzpatrick, M. C., & Galvani, A. P. (2021). Evaluation of COVID-19 vaccination strategies with a delayed second dose. PLoS biology, 19(4), e3001211.

Moore, J. P. (2021). Approaches for optimal use of different COVID-19 vaccines: Issues of viral variants and vaccine efficacy. JAMA, 325(13), 1251-1252.

Shaw, R. H., Stuart, A., Greenland, M., Liu, X., Van-Tam, J. S. N., & Snape, M. D. (2021). Heterologous prime-boost COVID-19 vaccination: Initial reactogenicity data. The Lancet, 397(10289), 2043-2046.

Wolff, J., Atuire, C., Bhan, A., Emanuel, E., Faden, R., Ghimire, P., … & Upshar, R. (2021). Ethical and policy considerations for COVID-19 vaccination modalities: delayed second dose, fractional dose, mixed vaccines. BMJ Global Health, 6(5), e005912.