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Cape Town — Continued boosters of the coronavirus vaccine are unsustainable strategies, experts say, but they still cannot prevent wealthy countries from returning to normal.
In January, Israel began giving some citizens a fourth coronavirus, followed by Chile on Monday. Greece will offer a fourth jab to people with weakened immunity after the national vaccination committee approves the plan on Tuesday. Germany is considering this move, and Britain is also considering the possibility, but the experts have voted against the idea for the time being.
Scientific evidence does not yet support continued boost, but there is another argument against practice-it is unlikely to stop a pandemic.
“Boosters after boosters in a few countries will not end the pandemic while billions remain completely defenseless,” said Tedros Adhanom Gebreyes, director of the World Health Organization.
Experts in both rich and poor countries say that boosters, which are repeated every few months, are not a strategy to work for the world, even if some countries are pushing the idea forward. Insist. Due to the narrow coverage and limited supply of first and second doses in some countries, the question is whether to focus on limiting serious illness rather than focusing on infection prevention. , The strategy is diluted in the light of the more fundamental problem.
It is “not sustainable”
The emergence of the first detected coronavirus omicron strains in Botswana and South Africa is only part of the vaccination rate in many EU countries, indicating a repeated mantra by the WHO chief throughout the pandemic. It’s safe until everyone is safe. “
Experts like Shabir Madhi, who advise the South African government on vaccination, say the message has yet to reach countries considering further boosters.
“It’s completely short-sighted,” he said of plans for a fourth or higher coronavirus vaccine.
“Unless you really believe that countries using these additional booster doses at the mass population level can somehow eliminate the virus and contain the borders elsewhere, you’ve achieved a clear goal. I really don’t believe it is. A world to prevent the import of further variants. ”
In the UK, Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Vaccination Advisory Board, said it was “not affordable.” [or] “Sustainable” means vaccination of everyone on the planet every 4-6 months. “We couldn’t even give one dose to everyone in Africa, so it’s not certain that we’ll be able to manage a fourth dose for everyone,” Polard told the BBC.
While vaccine manufacturers are increasing their production capacity, the limited availability of jabs has prevented them from achieving their goal of vaccination of 40% of the world’s population by the end of 2021. The Independent Allocation of Vaccines Group, founded by WHO, predicts that by mid-2022 there will be enough vaccine to inoculate 70% of the world’s population three times.
However, the fourth dose may throw a spanner during work.
Even Germany has expressed fear of vaccine shortages in 2022, and after warning that sufficient vaccines are not available for booster campaigns, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach scrambles to secure additional doses from Modana. I’m wearing it.
Science does not support it
Israel cited interim data from a local study showing a significant increase in antibody after the 4th BioNTech / Pfizer jab as justification for the 4th dose. However, Richard Lessells, an infectious disease doctor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said that in South Africa, continuous boosting “is not an effective strategy in preventing infection.”
In the UK, the government’s Vaccination Advisory Group said, “A second booster dose or a fourth jab, given the data showing that only one booster continues to provide a high level of protection against severe illness. Most do not need to be deployed. Vulnerable. “
Viral immunologist David Martinez, who was involved in the preclinical development of Johnson & Johnson and Moderna vaccines. Echo this. The vaccine “is still very well protected from serious illness, and that is the goal of the vaccine,” he said. While it would be beneficial if the vaccine could control the infection, Martinez states that “as the virus mutates, it becomes more difficult for the vaccine-induced antibody to control the infection.”
“No one has a crystal ball,” he said, as to how often boosts are needed. “The data need to influence these decisions. So far, the vaccine seems to be quite durable even against Omicron.”
Late stage
Whether the uncontrolled spread of Omicron and the fact that vaccines still protect against serious illnesses require a shift in approach to how the world treats the virus is a major issue that has plagued governments. ..
“what [the virus] Mark Mendelson, Head of Infectious Diseases and HIV Medicine at the Groote Schuur Hospital at the University of Cape Town, said: Currently, the main role of boosters is to raise neutralizing antibody levels, Mendelson said. It reduces mild illnesses and infections rather than severe illnesses.
Mendelson and other experts believe that second-generation vaccines make more sense than using existing jabs to continue booster immunization. Ali Elvedy, an immunoscientist at Washington University in St. Louis, told The New York Times, “If you add another three times later, you’ll definitely wait for an omicron-based dose.”
But a more pressing problem for wealthy countries trying to control infections with boosters is that they think globally rather than locally. Indeed, Mendelson said he only had to look at Omicron, which was likely to have emerged in southern Africa and had a significant impact on other parts of the world.
“But unfortunately, people are looking at their problems rather than realizing that this is a global problem,” he said.
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