Covid booster shots 'boost your immunity above and beyond'

Dr Ronald  Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer at Discovery Health outlines the efficacy of the booster shots with Refilwe Moloto.

• People who are six months post their second vaccination dose are now eligible for the Covid booster shots but Dr Whelan explains that apathy and vaccine hesitancy is causing the uptake to be slow

• He encourages all to have the booster noting that Covid is still a severe disease even though the latest Omicron variant was less severe

• The boosters are safe and effective he notes

---

Those who received their first two Pfizer vaccinations towards the start of the campaign are now eligible to receive their third dose.

South Africa's vaccination programme has reached 29 million vaccinations delivered across the country says Whelan.

16 million people are fully vaccinated - that's about 27% of South Africans.

Dr Ronald  Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer - Discovery Health

The country has now moved into the booster part of the programme, he notes.

To date, we have delivered 415,000 booster doses across SA of which 300,000 have been J&J boosters many as part of the Sisonke project, and about 100,000 Pfizer boosters.

Dr Ronald  Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer - Discovery Health

Pfizer booster programme began in December.

We know boosters work and they continue to be safe and effective.

Dr Ronald  Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer - Discovery Health

What's interesting about the booster dose is they boost your immunity levels beyond where you were from the second dose. So they go above and beyond, which is exactly where you want to be.

Dr Ronald  Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer - Discovery Health

While we might be coming out of the Omicron wave now, we can't be certain that we won't see another variant so it is critical to get your booster dose when eligible post your second dose.

Dr Ronald  Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer - Discovery Health

The booster numbers are not high so what is keeping people from taking up the offer, asks Refilwe?

Whelan outlines some of the obstacles.

There is certainly a bit of apathy and resistance with people starting to grow tired of Covid and to live with Covid. We need to remember that Covid is a severe disease and while Omicron may have been a lesser severe incident and did not look as severe as Alpha and Beta - covid is a severe disease.

Dr Ronald  Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer - Discovery Health

We also see a high degree of vaccine hesitancy. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation doing the rounds. Some of the misinformation is very rudimentary information like 5G chips and nanobots, but we also see some very sophisticated misinformation doing the rounds and you really need to be eagle-eyed around that misinformation.

Dr Ronald  Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer - Discovery Health

More from Local

More from World