Pilots, flight attendants and other frontline workers at Etihad Airways may already have received a third ‘booster’ shot of the Chinese manufactured Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine used on some of the airline’s employees under an emergency use authorisation and while the vaccine was still undergoing Phase III trials.
Some of the Abu Dhabi-based airline’s flight attendants received the Sinopharm vaccine as early as last November before a wider rollout was announced earlier this year. In February, Etihad announced it had become the first airline in the world to have 100 per cent of pilots and flight attendants onboard its flights fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Sinopharm shot, which is manufactured locally through a deal between the Chinese vaccine developer and Abu Dhabi-based technology company Group 42, has become a bedrock of the emirates vaccine rollout and was tested with a two-dose regimen administered at least 21-days apart.
But the United Arab Emirates recently announced plans to offer a third booster dose as part of what it called its “proactive strategy to provide maximum protection for society”. The National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority said priority would be given to those aged over 60 or suffering a chronic disease, although the booster shot could be offered to others as well.
The announcement came nearly a month after the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention apparently suggested that Chinese developed COVID-19 vaccines didn’t offer much protection.
Gao Fu told a conference in Chengdu that Chinese vaccines “do not achieve very high protection rates,” although he quickly qualified his widely reported statement, saying he wanted to look at ways to increase the effectiveness of the vaccines even further.
The World Health Organization (WHO) approved the Sinopharm vaccine earlier this month, saying that after two doses, Phase III…