Third dose of coronavirus vaccine at the end of the year likely, says Head of Vaccination Task Force
The Head of the Vaccination Task Force Dirk Ramaekers (photo above) has said in a newspaper interview that it is likely that people in Belgium will be given a third dose of coronavirus vaccine. Mr Ramaekers told the daily ‘Het Laatste Nieuws’ that the third dose would be administered from December. The Vaccination Task Force is currently working out the practicalities of how the third dose will be administered and to whom.
"We can say pretty much with certainty that we will probably start administering the additional doses of coronavirus vaccine at the end of this year and certainly at the start of next year. The extra jab is a booster to improve on the immunity from the first round of vaccinations”, Mr Ramaekers said.
It is still to be decided whether everyone will be offered a booster jab. “Studies are still being carried out. Maybe it will be only for the at-risk groups, but we are also taking into consideration that it might be for everyone”.
The Task Force started working out the practicalities of vaccination “phase 3” a couple of weeks ago.
"The aim is to incorporate COVID vaccination into the regular health care system. In the first instance some vaccination centres will remain, but instead of the current 150 there will be 1 or 2 per province. The work will shift towards GPs, home nurses, occupational physicians and pharmacists. How exactly it will work is something that we are currently examining. It won’t be the case that a patient will just be able to turn up at their GP’s surgery and ask for a vaccine, because the bottles contain several doses and these have to be administered as quickly as possible.”, Mr Ramaekers added.