A leading expert who helped create the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine said Tuesday that giving everyone in the world booster shots multiple times a year is not feasible. “We can’t vaccinate the planet every four to six months. It’s not sustainable or affordable,” Professor Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and head of the UK’s Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, told The Daily Telegraph in an interview published Tuesday.
Pollard also stressed the “need to target the vulnerable” going forward, rather than administering doses to everyone age 12 and older. More data is needed to ascertain “whether, when and how often those who are vulnerable will need additional doses,” he said.
Pollard also said he thought further evidence was needed before offering a fourth Covid-19 shot to people in the UK, which is currently rolling out third shots to healthy people 18 and older, and at-risk people 16 and older.
In a separate interview with Sky News on Tuesday, Pollard also cited the glaring unevenness of vaccine rollouts across the world.
“It’s just not — from a global perspective — affordable, sustainable or deliverable to give fourth doses to everyone on the planet every six months,” Pollard said. “And remember that, today, less than 10% of people in low-income countries have even had their first dose, so the whole idea of regular fourth doses globally is just not sensible.”