Explainer | Coronavirus: should Hongkongers get the bivalent vaccine? Here is all the information you need to make a choice
- BioNTech’s Omicron-specific vaccine is now available to uninfected adults as a fourth dose or for recovered patients with two jabs as a third dose
- Scientific committees recommend government make bivalent vaccine available to wider population
Scientific committees on Thursday recommended the Hong Kong government make the Omicron-specific coronavirus vaccine available to a wider population, hours after residents with three jabs began receiving the second-generation booster as their fourth dose.
Here is what you need to know about the second-generation Covid-19 vaccine now available in Hong Kong.
1. What is a bivalent vaccine and which brand is available in Hong Kong?
Bivalent Covid-19 vaccines contain components of the original strain as well as Omicron, granting better protection against infections caused by the prevalent variant.
The only bivalent vaccine available in Hong Kong is produced in Germany by pharmaceutical company BioNTech and targets the subvariants BA.4 and BA.5. The two strains made up more than 70 per cent of cases sequenced by a government laboratory between November 22 and 28.
Authorities have ordered 1.9 million shots of the BioNTech bivalent vaccine so far, with the first batch of 770,000 arriving in the city on November 25.
