Coronavirus: ‘No medical evidence’ we need booster shots

Medical experts say it may be in vax manufacturers’ commercial interest to promote boosters but vaccine equity is more important.

Infectious Diseases physician and microbiologist Dr Peter Collignon at the Senate Inquiry into COVID-19.

Australia’s leading medical experts have quashed concerns about the nation’s access to Covid-19 booster shots, declaring it more important that vaccines are shared with the developed world before third doses are administered to rich nations.

Infectious diseases expert Peter Collignon said there was still no medical evidence to suggest booster shots were necessary but acknowledged that third shots may one day become a fact of life.

“While I’m sure it’s in the commercial interest of Pfizer to promote boosters, the evidence so far is you don’t need them,” he said. “However, we do need insurance through government contracts for booster shots in case we need them down the track.”

AMA President Omar Khorshid told The Australian that vaccine equity was key to ensuring more virulent and dangerous strains of the virus didn’t emerge.

“I think we absolutely need to vaccinate the entire world on first and second doses before we get too focused on third shots,” he said. “If we still have huge amounts of virus circulating around the world that will lead to more variants.”

Professor Collignon questioned the ethics of giving booster shots to people at a lower risk of contracting a serious illness when there may still be 60 and 70-year-old people in the developing world with no access.

“Just say we discover vaccine efficacy drops from 94 per cent to 88 per cent over eight months, we need to be careful not to capture vaccines for a marginal drop in efficacy, especially if the rest of the world hasn’t been vaccinated.”

Dr Omar Khorshid speaks to reporters at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned countries should not be ordering booster shots for their vaccinated populations when other countries had not yet received vaccines.

“Some countries and regions are actually ordering millions of booster doses, before other countries have had supplies to vaccinate their health workers and most vulnerable,” he said.

The WHO’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, echoed the concerns, declaring the body had so far not seen evidence showing that booster shots were necessary for those who had received a full course of vaccines.

“It has to be based on the science and the data, not on individual companies declaring that their vaccines need to be administered as a booster dose,” he said.

The competition for future deals comes as Scott Morrison downplays claims the government was too slow to sign a deal with Pfizer and did not do enough to diversify supply.

Moderna is working on a booster shot, of which Australia has ordered 15 million doses, and Pfizer and AstraZeneca are also developing boosters.

The Department of Health said evidence was still evolving to determine whether a booster dose was required to maintain protection against COVID-19 and if so, how often they might need to be administered.

“Australia is well prepared for booster vaccines if they are required. This has been taken into account in the purchase agreements already in place,” they said.

The government also has an Advance Purchased Agreement with Novavax for 51 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.

UNSW Epidemiologist Marylouise McLaws said the government needed to press ahead with orders especially as the United Kingdom was preparing to administer booster shots by the end of the year.

“I think it’s timely we think about how much we might need for booster shots because we are seeing the UK already starting to roll out their third shot.”

Opposition health spokesman Mark Butler said Scott Morrison’s “stubborn incompetence” had left Australians dangerously exposed to a highly infectious strain of COVID-19.

“A range of experts have been advising the government to secure more vaccines to use as booster shots but Scott Morrison continues to sit on his hands,” he said.