Rajeev Choudhury

The European Medical Agency said on Tuesday that while giving a fourth booster dose of a vaccine shot to the general population can be a part of a contingency plan, repeated vaccinations in a short time period were sot “sustainable” strategy.

“Epidemiological situation continues to remain very worrying in the European Region, seeing rapid infection rates in all the member states situation largely driven by delta variant and rapidly increasing spread of the omicron variant,” Dr Marco Cavaleri, head of the vaccine strategy at the Amsterdam-based regulator, told journalists on January 11, 2022.

Admitting that the Omicron variant is highly infectious, Dr Cavaleri said that the variant is “resulting in a high number of infected individuals so it is very important to be aware of its potential burden and not to dismiss it as a mild disease.”

“More data are awaited to fully characterise the behaviour of this variant,” he added.

“Additionally there is an emerging discussion around the possibility of giving a second booster dose with the same vaccine currently in use,” Dr Cavaleri said

However, data have not yet been generated to support this approach, he informed the media.