Additional Covid-19 booster doses to be available for all adults

THE Department of Health will begin to make additional Covid-19 vaccination booster doses available to all adults, following the detection of the more transmissible XBB.1.5 sub-variant of the Omicron variant in the country.

The department’s Dr Lesley Bamford explained that currently, adults over the age of 50 are eligible to receive four doses – including booster doses – of the vaccine, while those between 18 and 49 can receive three doses.

“It is our intention to offer another additional dose. So that will be a fifth dose for people 50 years and older and a fourth dose for people 18 to 49 years of age. Those doses will also be available for people who are immunocompromised.”

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“Our expectation is that the additional booster doses [third and fourth] will be available during January, probably towards the end of the month. We are working hard to provide the additional doses. Any adult who has not had a dose in the past six months, whether they are immunocompromised or not, will be eligible to receive an additional booster dose,” she said.

Bamford added that children between the ages of 12 and 17 years of age will not be eligible for booster doses.

Health minister Dr Joe Phaahla emphasised that the vaccine proved that it made a difference, even at the height of the fourth wave.

“We are advocating for vaccination, and the reason we’re doing so is because vaccination has [been] proven [to be efficient] beyond a reasonable doubt. Since there have been vaccinations, any changes in the nature of the virus in terms of variants…even when there has been high transmissibility, has resulted in milder illness and sometimes even asymptomatic infections,” he said.

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By Monday (January 9), some 38 271 617 jabs had been administered with 22 498 138 people receiving at least one dose.

For more information on vaccination sites, call the national health hotline at 0800 029 999 or visit www.sacoronavirus.co.za/active-vaccination-sites.