EXPERT COMMITTEE LOOKING INTO NEED FOR BOOSTER SHOTS
The expert committee on Covid-19 vaccination is discussing whether there is a need for booster shots to be given to specific groups such as seniors, vulnerable people and those in the healthcare setting, or to the general population.
An announcement will be made in due course once the committee has firmed up its policy on booster shots, said Singapore’s director of medical services Kenneth Mak yesterday.
He was responding to a question from The Straits Times on whether the multi-ministry task force will consider giving booster shots to people with co-morbidities, or those suffering from two or more diseases, after a number of them fell seriously ill despite being vaccinated.
ST also asked at the press conference held by the task force whether it will consider testing the antibody levels of healthcare workers who were vaccinated at least six months ago, and give them a third dose as a booster shot if their neutralising antibodies have fallen below a certain level.
Covid-19 neutralising antibodies are able to prevent the Sars-Cov-2 virus from infecting a person’s cells.
Associate Professor Mak said that the data from current antibody tests, also known as serology tests, is unable to be correlated accurately with the degree of immune protection that vaccines are able to provide.
The expert committee is working to determine if an individual is at risk of having his immune protection wane over time, he added.
On antibody tests, Prof Mak said: “At this time, the evidence doesn’t point strongly towards doing this on a routine and regular basis.”
He stressed that the emphasis still remains on getting as high a vaccination coverage as possible with the current regime, with the focus on encouraging people to get vaccinated.
WHY CLUSTERS ARE NAMED BASED ON INDEX CASE
Clusters will continue to be named based on their index case, unless naming them after a specific location can help enhance the authorities’ ability to gain control over the spread, said Prof Mak.
He was responding to a question raised at the press conference on the circumstances under which the Ministry of Health will name a cluster after a specific location. For instance, the North Bridge Road Market and Food Centre, which had three cases as at Thursday evening, had initially been named after its index case.
Prof Mak said: “We’ve always been naming clusters after the index case or case number, (which) actually has been our practice right from the outset.
“We had provided some additional information in the past for some of the clusters… where it made sense because most of the transmissions were taking place within certain locations.”
However, as Singapore has evolved in its management in Covid-19 cases, it was found that the transmission between cases is sometimes more related to activities, rather than the locations, said Prof Mak.
He cited the Jurong Fishery Port cluster as an example, where transmission of the virus subsequently occurred at markets after a number of fishmongers who frequented the port went on to sell fish at their respective markets. The cluster has more than 1,000 cases linked to it.
Therefore, it is not necessarily helpful to name the clusters on the basis of fixed locations sometimes, because the activities that have taken place might have been a more important mode of transmission, said Prof Mak.
Cheryl Tan