Carolyn Cooper | No real choice of booster vaccines

In December, I went to the Mona Ageing and Wellness Centre to get my second booster vaccine. I took quite seriously the warning of Chief Medical Officer Dr Jacquiline Bisasor McKenzie that the increase of visitors to Jamaica over the holiday season was going to put us all at risk of infection by the new Omicron variants of COVID-19.

I wanted to get another AstraZeneca vaccine since that had been my brand of choice for my three previous shots. Unfortunately, it was not available. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinopharm vaccines were the two options. There was also the Johnson & Johnson vaccine but it’s not used as a booster. And I certainly didn’t want to take the Sinopharm. My prejudice turned out to be quite rational. Last week, I found a report on the Nature website posted on October 14, 2021, with this headline: “China’s COVID vaccines have been crucial – now immunity is waning”.

The article by Smriti Mallapaty confirmed that, “China’s CoronaVac and Sinopharm vaccines account for almost half of the 7.3 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered globally, and have been enormously important in fighting the pandemic, particularly in less wealthy nations.

“But as the doses mount, so have the data, with studies suggesting that the immunity from two doses of either vaccine wanes rapidly, and the protection offered to older people is limited. This week the World Health Organization announced advice from its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) that people over 60 should receive a third dose of the same or another vaccine to ensure sufficient protection.”

MIX AND MATCH VACCINATION

I really didn’t want to mix and match vaccines. It seemed like a last resort. Even the US National Institutes of Health appeared to concede this in a post on its website updated in April 2022. The report uses the auxiliary verb ‘may’ to indicate possibility, as distinct from fact: “Mixing vaccines may enhance the immune response, and it increases flexibility for when people need a booster dose but doses of the vaccine they first received are not available.” As we put it, “Tek weh yu get til yu get weh yu want.” Practical advice, but not at all ideal, especially for vaccination against COVID-19!

I reluctantly took the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. I had family and friends coming from the US and I needed to protect myself. I also took the flu vaccine for the first time. Unfortunately, the new bivalent Pfizer booster was not available. ‘Bivalent’ is one of those many English words of Latin origin. ‘Bi’ means ‘twice, double.’ And ‘valent’ comes from ‘valentia,’ meaning ‘strength, capacity.’ So the new vaccine is intended to be doubly powerful.

According to a December 2022 article on the YaleMedicine website, “Half of the vaccine targets the original strain, and the other half targets the B.A.4 and B.A.5 Omicron subvariant lineages, which are predicted to continue circulating this fall and winter.” I was stuck with the original vaccine that deals with only half of the problem.

On top of that, the booster was going to expire in January 2023. The very next month! I was relieved to discover that the vaccine was not about to die, in the other sense of the word. The expiration date was the last possible time it could be given safely. Still, it was much too close for comfort.

MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS

Concerned about the lack of choice of booster vaccines, I emailed the Ministry of Health and Wellness to find out how long the AstraZeneca vaccine had been unavailable. Incidentally, I really don’t understand why ‘Wellness’ has been tagged on to ‘Health’ since both words mean approximately the same thing. I suppose ‘wellness’ is more trendy and sexy than plain old-fashioned ‘health.’

I was informed that the AstraZeneca vaccine had not been available since August 1, 2022. So far, I’ve not received a response to my follow-up email in which I asked why the AstraZeneca vaccine ran out in August and when it will be available again. I also did not get an answer to my question about if and when the bivalent Pfizer booster will be accessible.

I did get a response to my question about what, if anything, is being done to encourage vaccine-hesitant citizens to agree to be vaccinated and boosted: “The MOHW continue (sic) to engage persons by providing credible COVID 19 information through the media, at health centres and hospitals, in the communities, at churches, during one-on-one sessions etc. The Ministry have (sic) made the vaccines available across the island at health centres as well as via some private partners.”

I also did not get a response to my question about what systems the Ministry has put in place to measure the effectiveness of the public education programme about vaccination. I did find a December 20, 2022 article posted on The Jamaica Information Service (JIS) website with this supposedly reassuring headline: “Monkeypox and COVID-19 Infection Levels Remain Low”.

The JIS report quoted Dr the Hon Christopher Tufton, minister of health and wellness, who said at a press conference last month that 27.2 per cent of Jamaicans have been vaccinated. But a Gleaner editorial published on Christmas Day, “Heading off the spike in COVID-19”, revealed that, “a mere 1.5 per cent of the population, had, up to December 19, received a booster jab”. In these circumstances, those of us who are willing to be doubly boosted shouldn’t have to settle for what’s immediately available. We really ought to have a choice of vaccine.

- Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a teacher of English language and literature and a specialist on culture and development. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.