THE government should adopt the “delayed second dose vaccination” strategy to vaccinate more people first, said Pakatan Harapan (PH).

This strategy, adopted by other countries such as the United Kingdom, will curb the drastic hike in Covid-19 cases amidst a shortage of vaccine supply, the opposition coalition’s presidential council said.

“Our utmost priority should be to protect the maximum number of people within the shortest possible timeframe.

“By delaying the administration of the second dose, more Malaysians will be given the first dose of the vaccines.

“This is particularly pressing, in view of the acute shortage of vaccines at the moment,” the council said in a statement.

It said the UK has used the strategy since November 2020 and it is now being employed by other countries, including Singapore and India.

“The latest research by the University of Birmingham, in collaboration with Public Health England, has found that administering the Pfizer-BioNTech booster 12 weeks after the first dose rather than three weeks produced a much stronger antibody response.

“Researchers from Oxford University also showed in February that antibody responses were more than twice as strong when boosters of their vaccine were delayed for 12 weeks,” the PH council added.

In view of the slow rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, there is an urgent need to change to this approach, said the statement signed by PKR and Amanah presidents Anwar Ibrahim and Mohamad Sabu, and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng. – May 22, 2021.