New Delhi: Many countries are falling short of vaccines, putting them under pressure to find out whether giving two different kinds of vaccines to a person will help fight the virus. However, mixing doses of two leading COVID-19 vaccines increased side effects among patients such as fatigue and headaches in early findings, said a recent study.
People who got the first dose of AstraZeneca Plc’s shot followed by Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine four weeks later reported more short-lived side effects, most of them mild, researchers from the University of Oxford reported in The Lancet medical journal. That was also true when the order of the shots was switched, said a Bloomberg report.
In France, people who got the first dose of the Astra vaccine before the government restricted it to older patients are being offered the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech SE for their second injection, said the report.
“It’s a really intriguing finding and not something that we were necessarily expecting,” Matthew Snape, an Oxford pediatrics and vaccinology professor who’s leading the trial was quoted as saying. “Whether or not this will relate to an improved immune response, we don’t know yet; we’ll be finding out those results in a few weeks’ time.”
