The Department of Health (DOH) said it is studying if COVID-19 vaccine booster shots can be given three months after the second dose.
“We are looking at advancing the booster jabs, maybe three months after if the response is truly much higher, in terms of antibody levels. We are going to defer to our Vaccine Experts Panel...,” said DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III in an interview on CNN Philippines on Friday, Dec. 10.
“We are looking into it...what will be the comparative advantage of giving earlier booster shots... What if we give it three months after the second dose? Will that confer even a much higher level of protection?,” he added.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that they will be looking at the studies being conducted in other countries.
“Itong mga lumalabas na artikulo na pagiikli between the second and the third dose, pag aaralan naman iyan ng ating mga eksperto. Pero sa ngayon na hindi pa kumpleto ang mga ebidensya na iyan (These articles that are coming out about shortening the interval between the second and the third doses, our experts will study that. But now that the evidence is not complete yet), we maintain the status quo,” she said in a press briefing.
Based on the current DOH guidelines, those who received Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Sputnik V as their primary series---they need to wait for six months after their second dose before they can get the booster jab.
Meanwhile, for those who got the single-shot Janssen vaccine, they need to wait at least three months before they can get a booster shot.