OTTAWA The National Advisory Committee on Immunization is coming under fire after contradicting the advice Canadians have been receiving for weeks to take the first vaccine against COVID-19 that they re offered.
NACI said Monday that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are preferred and that Canadians should weigh the risks of waiting for one of them before deciding whether to take a more immediate jab of either of the other two approved for use in Canada.
The Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines have been linked to a new and extremely rare blood-clotting syndrome.
Because of that, Dr. Shelly Deeks, vice-chair of the committee, said someone working from home in a province where there is not much disease might want to wait for a shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
OTTAWA The National Advisory Committee on Immunization is coming under fire after contradicting the advice Canadians have been receiving for weeks to take the first vaccine against COVID-19 that they re offered. NACI said Monday that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are preferred and that Canadians should weigh the risks of waiting for one of them before deciding whether to take a more immediate jab of either of the other two approved for use in Canada. The Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines have been linked to a new and extremely rare blood-clotting syndrome. Because of that, Dr. Shelly Deeks, vice-chair of the committee, said someone working from home in a province where there is not much disease might want to wait for a shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
The Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines have been linked to a new and extremely rare blood-clotting syndrome.
Because of that, Dr. Shelly Deeks, vice-chair of the committee, said someone working from home in a province where there is not much disease might want to wait for a shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
But she said it would be a very different risk-benefit analysis for someone working in a manufacturing plant without personal protective equipment in a province where COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire.
NACI’s advice appears to contradict Health Canada’s long-standing recommendation that the best vaccine is the first one available.
TORONTO The National Advisory Committee on Immunization is being accused of creating confusion about COVID-19 vaccines after it restated that mRNA vaccines were âpreferredâ over the viral vector-based ones. On Monday, NACI doubled down on its position that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were âpreferredâ over the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca shots, and that Canadians should weigh the risks before they decide which one to receive. The viral vector-based AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson doses have been linked to an extremely rare and potentially life-threatening blood-clotting syndrome called vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT). The risk for developing this syndrome is estimated to be anywhere from one case in 100,000 doses to one case in 250,000.