The government will analyze the possibility of extending the time to apply vaccines

The Ministry of Health and Social Protection reported that in order to update the national vaccination plan, it has reviewed scientific evidence that indicates significant benefits if the vaccination application time is extended to 12 weeks. Vaccine dose Pfizer – Bioetec.

“We are constantly reviewing the scientific literature that appears about the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine against Covid-19, in order to make decisions that best protect people from this disease,” said Leonardo Arigosis, Director of Medicines and Health Technologies. He also confirmed that the change in the Pfizer vaccine regimen has been observed in some countries with important benefits for the population.

Two examples of this are the case of the United Kingdom and Canada, where the application time of the second doses was changed to 12 and 16 weeks, respectively.

Some studies of these two cases showed that vaccine protection in the UK was higher when the time between doses was 12 weeks than when it was three.

Likewise, according to studies, Canada decided to extend the time between doses because in this way it can vaccinate more people in less time, thus reducing the number of deaths from the virus, if compared to the second dose within three weeks.

“These new findings are emerging that allow us to know that in addition to having fewer cases, people are getting better protection against disease through Covid-19,” Arigosses said.

It is worth noting that this guide has been reviewed by the Colombian League
Infection Science (Acin) and members of the Colombian Consensus of Care,
Diagnosis and management of Sars-CoV-2 / Covid-19 infections, who recommend this method to develop vaccination using Pfizer biology to protect a larger proportion of the population, as well as to reduce the number of cases and deaths due to the virus.

Extending the second dose interval for some SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 vaccines is saving lives. Embed a Tweet https://t.co/rRbXfWZDun pic.twitter.com/eYJPNmUlWU

ACINNACIONAL (acinnacional) May 22, 2021

The Health File stated that this evidence, along with the recommendation of Acin and members of the Colombian Consensus, will be submitted to the Vaccine Advisory Committee for this decision.