No need to wait: U.K.’s chief medical officers outline choice to suspend 15-minute post-jab wait

The usual 15-minute wait period following a COVID-19 vaccination has been suspended, with the U.K.’s chief medical officers and other policy makers saying the observation period “will cause more harm than it can avert.” The waiting time cuts in to the National Health Service (NHS)’s ability to deliver first, second and booster doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, according to a Dec. 14 press release from the chief medical officers. The speed of the vaccine rollout is essential as the omicron variant is spreading rapidly in the U.K. “Even if less severe than Delta, with the very high numbers involved modelling from several groups show this will cause substantial mortality, severe illness and pressure on the NHS. This constitutes a national health emergency,” the press release states. The move will increase the risk of an unsupervised post-vaccine allergic reaction for a small number of people, but the chief medical officers note that a slower vaccine rollout puts more people at risk for not getting vaccinated before being exposed to the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. People with a history of allergic reactions will be managed according to existing protocols for those patients. Everyone receiving vaccinations will be given information about managing allergic reactions. Anaphylaxis is very rare, with an incidence of 0.26 per 100,000 after booster doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, with no fatal reports, the press release reads. Of the 28 reports of anaphylaxis after delivery of a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine booster dose, 17 occurred within the 15-minute waiting time and 14 were after the 15-minute waiting period but on the same day. Of the 28 reports, five met the case definition criteria for anaphylaxis. NHS England estimates that the 15-minute wait time reduces the delivery of vaccines by 23%, an equivalent to 500,000 people not getting their vaccine in the initial stages of the COVID-19 vaccine booster campaign. Read: Ontario's science table says contacts must be cut in half to avoid 10K cases per day before Christmas Whether the suspension of the waiting time will continue once the crunch to deliver the vaccines has ended will be decided by the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM), the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). While the U.K.’s initial vaccine campaign focused on the Oxford-Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine, the booster doses are mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The CovBoost study showed that the antibody responses to the mRNA vaccines were typically within seven to 10 days, faster than other vaccines studied. Results from the CovBoost study were published in The Lancet in early December. More than 25 million people in the U.K. have now received a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine. The booster doses are open to all people 18 years old and older. The armed forces and tens of thousands of volunteers are assisting in the rollout, a December 16 press release from the U.K.’s Department of Health and Social Care stated. On December 16, Ontario’s Ministry of Health advised that the post-vaccine observation period can be reduced to between five to 15 minutes for booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Read: Data indicate Omicron is milder, better at evading vaccines

No need to wait: U.K.’s chief medical officers outline choice to suspend 15-minute post-jab wait

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics