• Question: What is the best vaccine to get

    Asked by ShaneC on 17 Nov 2021. This question was also asked by LornaG.
    • Photo: Henry Darch

      Henry Darch answered on 17 Nov 2021:

      The short answer is ‘the one that is available to you’.

      Presumably you are thinking about the COVID-19 vaccines. A big challenge with these vaccine programs is that we don’t know exactly which vaccine is best because we just don’t have all the data yet (and it depends on how you measure ‘best’!) because it’s all still so new.
      If you measure the ‘best’ vaccine by the level of initial protection it gives, then it looked like the mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna) types were the best of the ones we had at the beginning of 2021. But of course governments also have to consider availability and price, and ease of transportation. So brands like Astra-Zeneca- who offered their version at no-profit – and ones that could be storred for a long time in normal fridges (not the super cold ‘-80’ freezers that mRNA needs to be at) were better for low income countries and remote communities.

      It’s still a very complicated decision to make, and that’s why each country has teams of highly trained people whose job it is to make the best decision that they can, balancing all these different factors.

      Overall, the protection given by the approved COVID vaccines is very good compared to vaccines for other diseases that have been around for longer. So like I said before, the best vaccine is the one you can have right now!

    • Photo: Cyrille Thinnes

      Cyrille Thinnes answered on 17 Nov 2021:

      Given the current crisis, any vaccine that is relevant and available to you. Vaccines currently available have been tested for safety and effectiveness according to the fairly stringent standards of the European Medicines Agency. Data is still being collected and effectiveness is monitored continuously, so perhaps we will be able to crown a “best one” in the medium term. Yet, the main thing is to achieve a beneficial impact on our lives compared to ‘not having a vaccine at all’.

    • Photo: Ohood Alharbi

      Ohood Alharbi answered on 23 Nov 2021:

      Hello Shane,
      Vaccines are always developing and there are different types of vaccines. Since I worked in hospital almost 20 years ago I had to take a set of vaccines for multiple infectious diseases (tetanus, Hp B, and others). The companies who developed these vaccines are some of those who are developing vaccine for COVID right now, but that doesn’t make them better than others. The best thing I can advice is to seek your health professional advice in vaccine as they would be the most knowledgeable about up to date development for each brand of vaccine for each age group ..

      I hope this helps 🙂

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