The fourth dose against coronavirus Is falling. But will there be a fifth, and also a sixth? How many times are we going to have to prick ourselves to keep the virus under control? The second booster dose, that is, the fourth injection, will be a reality this fall for those over 60 in order to improve its immune response, but what is really expected is that it transforms into a Influenza (flu)-like vaccination that only requires one immunization per year. This annual vaccine would be a booster dose that, precisely, would be combined with that of the flu, as happened last season in the first third doses given to older people.
Given that, according to all forecasts, this virus “has come to stay” and is going to become seasonal, during the next few years it will be necessary to immunize against it and the goal is to achieve a universal vaccine that can be used against any evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and against any mutation. For this reason, different laboratories around the world are in the final stage of developing new formulas, called second-generation antidotes.
Scientists have it clear; a vaccine that protects us for a certain number of years is unthinkable with SARS-Cov-2. And they explain very graphically why. “There are multiple variants that elude the immune response. To use a metaphor, you recognize the face of the virus, the face of the villain. So this villain grows a beard, cuts his hair, and you have a harder time identifying him again.” It is a clear example.
“Our goal is to have a single annual booster dose so that people avoid having to get vaccinated two or three times in the winter”
This is well known to manufacturers who prepare updated sera containing components against BA.4 and BA.5 variants. “Our goal is to have a single annual booster dose so that people avoid having to be vaccinated two or three times in the winter”, explained Bancel, CEO of Moderna, who admitted that it is necessary to reduce the current high frequency of booster doses to prevent people from rejecting vaccination.
Agustín Portela, head of the Biotechnology Service of the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (Aemps), manages this thesis of an annual vaccine for the elderly. “We are not going to end mortality from coronavirus in the elderly even if they have the complete vaccination schedule”, he assures emphatically. He clarifies that it is not because the vaccine does not work, “but because they have underlying pathologies that become unbalanced when the person becomes infected.” For this reason, Portela believes that, in this age group, they should be vaccinated every year.
“With the third dose we have seen that there is a rise in antibodies. People with many pathologies and the elderly will have to be given successive punctures to have a very high level of antibodies and prevent them from neutralizing them on day one, even if 100 virus particles reach them, and not multiplying the virus, giving them a little fever and it destabilizes them”.
opinion division
But with many under 40 years without receiving the third puncture, the most controversial dose of all is being the fourth. Although experts agree that bracing is necessary once the 60-year threshold has been passed. And it makes even more sense for people over 70 “because their immune systems are less vigorous.”
In fact, in Europe, the oldest and most vulnerable people will receive it, starting in Septemberpractically immediately since it is urgent that they have extra protection due to the increase in contagions that are causing the subvariants of omicron BA.4 and BA.
“It is happening that people who have been immunized three times not only get infected, but also amplify the virus and spread it again”
From the AEV, its president, Amós García Rojas, maintains that “the right time” to vaccinate people over 60 years of age or younger but with risk factors with the fourth dose is “within two months”, when we already meet at the gates of autumn and by when it is expected that vaccines adapted to the new variants arising from ómicron.
Immunologist Alfredo Corell asserts, however, that I would only put the fourth dose in “situations of extreme need”. And it raises the injection for people with a high risk such as those with a compromised immune system.
inhalation vaccine
Meanwhile, virologist Luis Enjuanes believes that the antibodies provided by vaccines “they have lost a lot of effectiveness against omicron”so that in people who have been vaccinated three times it will be “around 50%”.
“It is happening that people who have been immunized three times not only get infected, but also amplify the virus and spread it again”, warns the expert. He insists that the vaccines designed so far are “of good quality” but his problem is “the route of administration”, since if he is injected intramuscularly and does not immunize locally in the mucosa where the virus is going to infect, he loses “98 % efficacy” of vaccination.
For this reason, he thinks that it would be desirable that by October, when the fourth dose is administered to the elderly, Pfizer and Moderna already have a way of intranasal administration, because then the effectiveness of their vaccines would “jump up with great power.” he
summer and covid
The heat plays in our favor
Loses effectiveness at 37 degrees. Virologists consider that it makes almost no sense to continue to puncture vaccines for strains prior to ómicron and graphically state that it is “like vaccinating against the flu with the version from five years ago”. However, they recognize that the summer can allow playing at home with SARS-Cov-2, because it has “many advantages”. Among them, that you are outdoors a lot, and that the temperature is very high. It must be remembered that coronaviruses lose ten times their effectiveness every day that they pass at 37 degrees. In addition, the sun tends to inactivate the virus, but “the problem is that people go to festivals and discos, where they are more easily contaminated by not wearing a mask.”
Coronavirus
560 million. Of the seven known human coronaviruses, the first four are already highly attenuated and cause a common cold, but the three most recent, SARS-CoV-2, have spread to more than 560 million in two and a half years. of people from 232 countries.
restrictions?
Virologists ask for less capacity and masks
Virologist Luis Enjuanes defends restrictions against the coronavirus, such as the “essential” use of the mask indoors, keeping distances and reducing the number of people who can gather in stadiums and festivals.
Crowds Limit macro-concerts
The new variants spread “very eagerly”, he says, although “it seems that the virus no longer exists, because you can go to any festival of 5,000 people, to football matches, to whatever, ignoring that the number of infected is very high.
tests are fired
99%
The sale of antigen tests increased by 98.9% between June 27 and July 3, compared to June, according to the pharmacy sales report.
Sales
By communities
Cantabria + 83%
Navarra + 80%
La Rioja + 73%
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