By The SUN
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| Top officials who were the first to get Sinovac jabs in HK may need booster shots (File) |
Local researchers have begun giving booster shots to fully
inoculated Sinovac vaccine recipients with low antibody levels to find out
whether there is a need to give
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This comes as two new confirmed Covid-19 cases, both
imported and fully vaccinated, were reported by
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Health Department staff said the two patients, a 53-year-old
man who returned from
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The man received two doses of the BioNTech vaccine in Hong
Kong on Apr 14 and May 5, while the woman received two jabs of Sputnik V in
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The man was found infected on his third day of hotel quarantine while the woman tested positive on arrival test.
Meanwhile,
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Lead researcher David Hui, who is also a government adviser on the pandemic, said in a radio interview that a low antibody level could mean reduced protection against a symptomatic infection of the coronavirus.
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| Hui says the low antibody level could mean lower protection against symptomatic infection |
Hui said this may be because Sinovac is an inactivated vaccine.
But he said their research, which also included a number of people who received the BioNTech vaccine, showed both vaccines are able to generate T cells, which lower the risk of severe symptoms and deaths.
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The researchers plan to give a booster shot of either vaccine to a randomly chosen group of 80 people to find out how the additional jab would affect their antibody level. The first group of 31 had their third dose on Wednesday.
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Hui said the research team should be able to publish the first results of their test in October. But he said the project will run for three years, with participants regularly monitored for antibody levels.
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