Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommends a third dose for some immunocompromised individuals, while health authorities are still urging the rest of the population to receive both doses.
In a update published Friday, NACI strongly recommends giving three doses of messenger RNA vaccine to moderately to severely immunocompromised individuals in the permitted age groups.
This could include, for example, people who have had an organ transplant, undergoing cancer treatments, or some HIV patients.
At the same time, Dr. Teresa Tam, Chief Executive Officer of the Public Health Agency of Canada, is once again calling on Canadians who have not done so to get vaccinated.
In a press briefing on Friday, she pointed out that although 85% of the eligible population has received a first dose and 78% of people are adequately vaccinated, significant gaps remain.
Millions of Canadians still need to be vaccinated
According to her, 7.3 million eligible people are still not adequately vaccinated. In addition, there are 4.8 million children too young to be vaccinated under the rules currently in force.
There are still far too many people at risk of contracting the virus and spreading
it, said Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada’s Deputy Chief Public Health Officer at the same press briefing.
He says that if all goes well,
some COVID-19 vaccines could be approved for under-12s towards the end of the year or early next year.
On average, there are more than 3700 new cases and 18 additional deaths daily in the country at the moment, according to health authorities.
Between the end of July and the end of August, unvaccinated people were 12 times more likely to be infected with COVID-19 than adequately vaccinated people. They were also 36 times more likely to be hospitalized than the latter, says Dr. Tam.
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