A Message from our Medical Officer of Health
mRNA Vaccines: effective, safe and interchangeable
A Message from Dr. Joyce Lock, Medical Officer of Health
The National Advisory on Immunization (NACI), the organization that advises the Public Health Agency of Canada, has endorsed the interchangeability of the mRNA vaccines based on current scientific evidence and their expert opinion.
The interchangeability of Pfizer and Moderna means that you can receive one vaccine product for your first dose and a different vaccine product for your second dose. The result will still be safe and highly effective protection against the COVID-19 virus, including the variants of concern.
Where possible, residents will be offered the same vaccine for their second dose as they received for their first. However, given local vaccine supply, this will often not be possible. In the Southwestern Public Health region, we primarily used Pfizer for the first three months of our immunization work. Now, following word of a very large shipment of Moderna, we are opening more appointments to more people – increasing the speed of our vaccination efforts. This is great news for our community. It also means that many residents who had Pfizer for the first dose will be offered Moderna for the second dose.
It is very important that we put less emphasis on brand and manufacturer and more on getting people fully vaccinated. One dose is not effective against COVID-19 and it certainly isn’t effective enough against the variants of concern like the Delta variant. Fully vaccinated is our goal.
Collectively let’s think less about which factory a vaccine came from and more about being double vaccinated, further reducing cases and ending this pandemic.
We’re in a good position. We have a good, steady vaccine supply for everyone needing a first or second dose. We can not guarantee what type of vaccine will be at the clinic you attend. What we can commit to is a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19 infection in a welcoming, safe and efficient clinic.
Dr. Joyce Lock