Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) announced that they are seeing a possibility of inoculating different jabs of Covid vaccine, namely AstraZeneca and Pfizer BioNTech. This was announced by Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, Director General of RBC on Sunday, August 8. Nsanzimana said that a dedicated team made research to confirm the possibility of taking two doses of different vaccines. “There has been a debate about this, but research has been made and facts from last week show that a person can take the first dose of Astrazeneca and the second one of Pfizer,” he said. “That person can have a strong immunity from the antibodies created from both vaccines,” he added. Nsanzimana said they had discussions with the research team and decided that mixing both vaccines is something that can be done in Rwanda. However, as regards to other types of vaccines, he said there is not much knowledge on it. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says there isn’t enough data to back this type of recommendation, but it leaves the decision-making to countries’ health authorities. The WHOs chief scientist, Soumya Swaminatha said Individuals should not decide for themselves, public health agencies can, based on available data.” Different countries around the globe have carried out clinical trials where they started mixing vaccines. Pharmaceutical technology reported that “University of Oxford scientists in June found that mixing the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines generated a robust immune response against the virus, inducing higher antibodies than an AstraZeneca-only, two-dose schedule.” RBC also said those who might have missed the appointed time for their second dose of vaccine can still get their jab. A person can get the second dose of Pfizer between 21 and 28 days while AstraZeneca it’s from 4 to 12 weeks.
