Combination vaccine - what's the catch?
Lately, the question has been raised: can Canadians who have been vaccinated against covid with various vaccines travel freely?
While Canadian health authorities say that Moderna recipients should not hesitate to use Pfizer-BioNTech as a second shot — or vice versa — the US Food and Drug Administration has so far been very reluctant to agree to this practice. They believe that vaccines should only be mixed in exceptional cases. The question is whether Canadians who have received different vaccines as first and second doses will be allowed to travel to the United States and other countries when this is possible.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominique LeBlanc says he hopes there should be no problem for these Canadians crossing borders in the coming months.
Is it dangerous to mix vaccines
Meanwhile, many European countries do not recognize the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine created at the Serum Institute in India, known by the brand name Covishield. This means that Canadians who receive it could be banned from entering the US.
On that occasion, during a virtual press conference Tuesday, LeBlanc suggested that data sharing and communication between health authorities from different countries should tweak the "conservative approach" to vaccination by regulators in some states:
"I think over the next few weeks and months, health authorities around the world will be able to amend their vaccination plans," the minister noted.
Canadian Dr. Howard Njoo also commented that there are already studies of mixed vaccination that point to its effectiveness. And the decrease in cases and deaths in Canada supports such conclusions:
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