How to prioritise Covid-19 vaccine doses when supplies are limited

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-09-01 09:01

International

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When vaccine stores are limited, new research finds it may be better to get as many people vaccinated with one dose of a highly-efficient Covid vaccine than getting the most vulnerable groups fully vaccinated at two doses. Researchers pulled data from England to model if different vaccination strategies made a difference at averting deaths when there was only a limited amount of jabs to go around. The researchers write that countries that have a more limited supply of vaccines could do similar calculations to inform whether such a single-dose strategy would be helpful, but more information is needed on the long-term protection offered by a single dose.

News release

From: The Royal Society

We present a modelling study on the prioritisation of first or second doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination given a fixed number of vaccine doses and with respect to a measure of maximising averted deaths. We performed this analysis in the context of the population of England and age stratified risk mortality. We examined two types of strategy for dose allocation, also considering different amounts of available vaccine and vaccine efficacies. We found vaccines offering relatively high protection from the first dose favour strategies that prioritise giving more people one dose rather than a smaller number of people two doses.

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Journal/
conference: Journal of the Royal Society Interface

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Warwick, UK; JUNIPER - Joint UNIversities Pandemic and Epidemiological Research

Funder: This report is independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) (Policy Research Programme, Mathematical & Economic Modelling for Vaccination and Immunization Evaluation, and Emergency Response; NIHR200411). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. It has also been supported by the Medical Research Council through the COVID-19 Rapid Response Rolling Call (grant no. MR/V009761/1) and through the JUNIPER modelling consortium (grant no. MR/V038613/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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