J;J booster vaccines: Govt now allows for THREE jabs

With the state of disaster looking likely to finally come to an end in the next few weeks, there are also more changes coming to our vaccine rollout plan. This change in particular, affects those who have been vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Instead of getting one J&J booster, you can now get two.

J&J booster vaccine: Two booster shots now available

According to a new circular from the Department of Health, from Monday the 14th of March, everyone who has been vaccinated with one shot of J&J, can now get two boosters. And since mixing-and-matching of vaccines is now allowed. You can boost your one J&J jab with two doses of Pfizer. That would mean that you are effectively “fully vaccinated” with both J&J and Pfizer.

That’s if you choose to do it that way. The Department of Health still recommends that you stick to the type of vaccine you were first vaccinated with.

So how will these boosters be spaced out? According to the circular, the first is available from two months after your first J&J jab. The second is then available to you 90 days later.

Running out of time to get Pfizer in SA

If you want to get vaccines with a Pfizer jab, you better act fast. The Department of Health has also confirmed that from August onwards, there will only be J&J vaccines available in the country.

This is because all the Pfizer vaccines we have inside the country, expire on the 31st of July. On top of that, Pfizer has already delivered all the vaccines government has ordered. Johnson & Johnson on the other hand, are still in the process of delivering tens of millions.

Since April 2021, South Africa has purchased over 60 million COVID-19 vaccines. All the J&J vaccines ordered only expire in 2023.

So far, over 17 million South African adults have been fully vaccinated. You can find the detailed national vaccine statistics here.