Southern Metropolis Daily:
What is the current progress of vaccination in China? What is the difference between sequential booster immunizations using vaccines from different technical routes and homologous booster immunizations using vaccines from the same technical route? What is the next step for implementation? Thank you.
Wang Hesheng:
We'd like Mr. Zeng Yixin to answer these questions.
Zeng Yixin:
Thank you for your interest in vaccinations. According to the decision-making and deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, and the unified arrangements of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, all parts of the country are steadily and orderly advancing the vaccination of the COVID-19 vaccines. As of March 17, China has reported more than 3.21 billion doses of vaccinations and the total number of people vaccinated is more than 1.27 billion, among whom more than 1.24 billion people have completed the full course of vaccination, accounting for 87.85% of the total population, while 644.68 million people completed booster immunizations.
According to the pandemic situation, the needs of prevention and control, and the progress of vaccine development and use in China, starting from October 2021, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council launched the work for COVID-19 vaccine homologous booster immunizations. That is to say, the same vaccine used for the full course of vaccination will also be used for the booster shot. We call this the "homologous booster." Recently, we have made some additional supplements and improvements to the COVID-19 vaccine booster immunization strategy, adding sequential booster immunization. The sequential booster immunization means that the booster immunization can choose a vaccine different from the original basic immunization. What is currently approved is that on the basis of inactivated vaccines, the vaccination can be boosted with adenovirus vector vaccines, or it can be boosted with recombinant protein vaccines. Next, we will probably add more options based on the progress of vaccine research and development in China.
According to the current policy, all people who meet the requirements for booster immunizations can receive booster immunizations six months after the full course of basic immunization. The booster immunization includes homologous or sequential immunization. For eligible populations, choosing one immunization option is enough for each person, be it either homologous or sequential vaccination. You all are also concerned about the differences between homologous and sequential vaccinations. Some relevant studies have been carried out at home and abroad on this issue, and some reports have been published. These studies show that both the homologous booster and sequential booster can significantly improve the immune protective efficacy, which is very clear. I just said that more than 600 million doses of booster immunization have been completed in China. Since the sequential booster immunization was carried out a little later, of the more than 600 million doses, most are homologous. However, from the adverse reaction data we have collected, there is no significant difference in adverse reactions between the two methods, so please feel free to vaccinate. We hope that people who meet the requirements for booster immunization, especially the elderly and those with underlying diseases, can take the initiative to vaccinate and get vaccinated in a timely manner so as to increase the protection of their own health and contribute to the pandemic prevention of the whole society. Thank you.
