Patients who are severely immunocompromised will likely require a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine to ensure optimal protection, ATAGI says.

The advisory group also anticipates that booster shots will be needed for the general population to protect against waning immunity.

However, it stressed that increasing first and second dose uptake remained a priority, adding that high primary vaccine coverage “is expected to have the largest impact on protection against severe disease”.

More than 26 million COVID-19 vaccinations have been recorded to date, with a record two million doses being administered in the past week alone.