The United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed with real-world data that the booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine provides 90 percent protection against hospitalisation during the Omicron surge, a fact local doctors had been trying to get across to Sri Lankan citizens.
The local health authorities said that the highly virulent Omicron is spreading fast in Sri Lanka but the response of the people to the booster dose so far has been very low. Only 4.8 million, about 30 percent of the population, had taken the Pfizer BioNTech booster dose by last Friday, January 21.
Director, Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry, Dr. Samitha Ginige said that over 14.5 million people in the age category of 20 and above are eligible to receive the booster vaccine. The booster shot is given three months after the second Covid-19 jab.
The study by the US Federal Agency for Health Protection affirmed what health experts here have already said - get the booster dose as soon as possible to get protection against the deadly disease. But misconceptions have marred the vaccine drive which had been highly effective in the past.
Researchers in the US who studied data from August 2021 to January 2022 have come to the conclusion that additional vaccine doses provide protection to people against the severe form of the disease and death.
The Government has imported nearly 50 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, of which 8.4 million doses have been received as donations through the United Nation’s Covax facility and the goodwill of friendly countries.
Over seven million doses of the vaccine are in stock and the Secretary to the State Ministry of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Saman Rathnayake said these vaccines have a shelf life of one year.