GMOA demands third shot for health personnel; AstraZeneca producer questions the need

By Rathindra Kuruwita

The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) on Thursday (29) told the Director General of Health Services, Dr. Asela Gunawardena, that all healthcare staff and other frontline workers needed a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

In a lettter to Dr. Gunawardena, Secretary of the GMOA, Dr. Senal Fernando has said several of the GMOA branch unions have informed them that there is an increase of COVID positive patients duirng the last few weeks.

“To make matters worse, significant numbers of health staff, including doctors, have tested COVID positive during the last few days. Most of them are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. When analysing the global trend, we observe that, certain countries have arrived at policy decisions to give a third dose to frontline health workers to protect them against the new COVID variants.”

The GMOA Executive Committee has requested Dr. Gunawardena to refer their request to relevant technical committees, at national level, and explore the possibility of arranging for the third dose to be administered to all categories of health staff and other frontline workers, who are at high risk of contracting the disease.

On 29 July, the CEO of AstraZeneca manufacturer, Pascal Soriot, said they were not yet sure whether a third dose of its Covid-19 vaccine would be necessary for continued protection against the virus.

“There are two dimensions to this immunity — antibodies [which] decline over time, but the second, very important dimension of vaccination is the so-called T-cells. They tend to protect people against severe disease, but they also provide durability,” Soriot told CNBC.

“With the technology we use, we have very high production of T-cells. We’re hoping we can have a durable vaccine that protects for a long period of time. So whether we will need a third booster or not is not clear yet, only time will tell,” he added.