COVID-19 Vaccines Mix & Matching: What Everyone Needs to Know

The mixing of Covid-19 vaccines is one of the emerging talking points as the world strives to achieve universal vaccination coverage. According to World Health Organisation, vaccination is a safe and reliable way to protect one against Covid-19 and reduces the risk of severe illness and death. 

Vaccines mixing is where one is given a second vaccine dose or a booster dose of a different type from the one received at first.

As the world grapples with vaccinating against Covid-19, a mix-and-match approach to jabs emerged as a potential solution to roadblocks like vaccine hesitancy, safety concerns, and supply chain issues. Studies have shown that administering different Covid-19 vaccines for the first, second, and booster doses induces a strong immune response against Covid-19.

However, there has been misinformation and propaganda on Covid-19 vaccines mixing and matching and this has exacerbated hesitancy this was highlighted among the challenge affecting Covid vaccination during our CSOs mapping exercise under the Accelerate Access to COVID-19 Vaccines in Uganda (VAX Uganda) project.

To bridge this information gap, Uganda’s Ministry of Health has guided on the mix and matching of Covid vaccines; detailing which vaccines can be mixed and the interval between the doses. 

Since the Covid-19 vaccines mixing and match guidelines are out and clear, we call upon districts to take note of this, and use them but also scale up community sensitization on the fact that mixing and matching are recommended and effective.