COVID-19: Focus should be on new vaccines rather than boosters, says WHO

Giving repeated booster doses of existing CovidD-19 vaccines in developed countries is not a sustainable global strategy for tackling the pandemic, the World Health Organization has said.

Instead, WHO argues that the focus should shift towards producing new vaccines that work better against transmission of emerging variants.

In a statement, published on 11 January, the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition said, “A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable.”

The expert group, which is assessing the performance of Covid-19 vaccines, said that to deal with emerging variants such as omicron, new vaccines needed to be developed that not only protect people against serious illness but against infection. “Covid-19 vaccines that have high impact on prevention of infection and transmission, in addition to the prevention of severe disease and death, are needed and should be developed,” the group said.

Vaccines also need to be more effective at protection against infection, “thus lowering community transmission and the need for stringent and broad reaching public health and social measures,” the group said.

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Source: BMJ, 17 January 2022