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PETALING JAYA: The health ministry is studying the need for a second booster dose following the increased prevalence of infection from the Omicron variant from within and outside the country.

Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said that the health ministry had referred to a foreign study that found Sinovac’s two-dose vaccine dose followed by a single Pfizer-BioNTech booster jab is less effective against the variant.

He said the ministry’s technical team will be proposing recommendations to the Covid-19 Immunization Task Force (CITF) after completing a few studies of its own.

Khairy was asked whether recipients of the Sinovac vaccine who have taken the Pfizer booster may require a further fourth dose.

“We have received the news (on the study). The technical team is studying the research and will make its recommendations to CITF as usual on whether those who received Sinovac (doses) and a Pfizer (booster) should be given another dose,” he said at a press conference today.

However, he said it was still too early to draw any definite conclusions from the foreign study.

Yesterday, a study by researchers from Yale University, the Dominican Republic’s health ministry and other institutions revealed that Sinovac’s two-dose vaccine, followed by a booster Pfizer shot, showed a lower immunity response against the Omicron variant compared to other strains.

According to the study cited by Reuters, two doses of the primary Sinovac vaccine and a Pfizer booster shot produced an antibody response similar to a two-dose mRNA vaccine.

It said the antibody levels against Omicron were 6.3-fold lower when compared to the ancestral variant and 2.7-fold lower when compared to Delta.

One of the authors of the study, Akiko Iwasaki, said those vaccinated with Sinovac’s CoronaVac may need two additional booster doses to reach the required protective levels against Omicron.

Earlier, the chief executive officer of pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Albert Bourla, also spoke on the need for a fourth dose to fight the Covid-19 virus that has mutated into the Omicron variant.

According to him, the threat posed by this new variant had proven that the virus will continue to mutate and a second booster shot can prevent those who are infected by the variant from lapsing into a critical condition.