UK doctors seek second jab policy review

LONDON: A major British doctors’ group said the United Kingdom government should “urgently review” its decision to give people a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine up to 12 weeks after the first, rather than the shorter gap recommended by the manufacturer and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The UK, which has Europe’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, adopted the policy in order to give as many people as possible a first dose of vaccine quickly. So far, almost 5.9 million people in Britain have received a shot of either a vaccine made by United States drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech or one developed by UK-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University.