THE government may extend the interval of Pfizer vaccine doses from three to six weeks to allow for more people to receive the first jab, said National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Co-ordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

“The Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee (JKJAV) may extend the dosing interval for Pfizer from three to six weeks depending on the prevalence of the variant of concern,” he said at a virtual press conference today.

Khairy, who is also the minister of science, technology and innovation, said that extending the dosing interval will allow for more people to receive the first jab.

“This will depend on the existence of the variant of concern as it will affect the efficacy of the vaccine.

“One dose of Pfizer will only give a 33% protection towards the B.1.617 variant, while two doses will provide 80% protection.

“Extending the dosing interval is a good strategy to cover more people, but the quality of protection towards the variants may be low,” he said.

He said extending the dosing interval would depend on how prevalent a specific variant was in a locality.

“Localities with a low number of variants allow for a longer gap for the second dose.

“In areas where they are prevalent, the time between doses will remain for three weeks for optimal protection.”

For the Sinovac vaccine, Khairy said the dosing interval would remain three weeks, while for AstraZeneca, authorities may consider shortening the current interval of 12 weeks, if there is a prevalence of other variants.

At the press conference, Khairy also said that there has been no vaccine wastage despite more than 50,000 people not showing up for their appointments.

“There is hardly any wastage, there is a reserve list, and in Terengganu and Kelantan the doses were administered to those on this list.

“Even if the waiting list is exhausted, as long as the vaccine is not taken out of the top loading freezer, for Pfizer, it can still be kept for another four days.”

Kedah reported 10,827 no shows, the most by state, followed by Pahang (10,000), Kelantan (10,000), Perak (9,009), Negri Sembilan (6,323), Malacca (3,612) and Perlis (3,000). – May 27, 2021.