Time of pollen allergies, but also of the anti-Covid vaccination campaign. The immunologist Mauro Minelli responds to the doubts of those who have yet to get immunized. “The vaccines currently available are not contraindicated in allergic subjects, especially given the basic consideration that any adverse reaction to the vaccine (whatever vaccine it is) will never be promoted by IgE, that is, by the cells that are the protagonists of the immune response to pollen” , underlines to Adnkronos Salute Minelli, responsible for the South of the Italian Foundation of Personalized Medicine, which suggests “for allergic subjects with important acute symptoms, one can think of postponing any vaccination for a few weeks”.
“When we talk about seasonal allergies we refer more frequently to respiratory diseases, that is rhinitis, rhinoconjunctives, asthma or ‘asthmatic equivalent’ of the cough type, perhaps associated with wheezing with shortness of breath or ‘hunger for air’. the immunologist discusses the merits – of pathologies that undoubtedly have a strong impact on the population considering that, according to updated and accredited sources, in Italy about half of the population suffers from respiratory allergies with a constant increasing trend. epidemiological projections started in 2006 and attesting, at the time, an estimated 30% incidence of respiratory allergies of the population, predicted a potential increase of 5% every 5 years “.
“Data, these, which cannot and must not be underestimated and which, inevitably, lead to correlating the exponential increase of these diseases to the influence, compared to a basic genetic predisposition, of various factors of clear environmental derivation. seasonal allergy sufferers, these triggers punctually concentrate in the time of the pollen explosion when, between April and June, grains of parietaria, grasses and olive trees add up in the air, just to name the most famous “, observes Minelli.
“This is the period in which the immune system of the allergic subject is constantly and intensely engaged in ‘keeping at bay’, through its cumbersome cellular and molecular dynamics, the unconditional action of airborne agents from which it is attacked every day. it is the primary commitment and it is also very tiring, other tasks would risk being, for that system, excessive and not such as to be countered with similar diligence and above all with valid effectiveness “, remembers the immunologist.
“Precisely for this reason and considering that the induction of an immune response of the organism, such as that which follows a vaccination, passes through an inflammation process sometimes associated with some reactive effect, it would be advisable not to add ‘heavy’ stimuli in immunologically unstable subjects. And since vaccination can be temporally postponed by a few weeks but not pollination which instead responds to indifferent biological cycles, it may be appropriate to provide – he suggests – for allergic subjects with important acute symptoms, a postponement of any vaccination to when, in a few weeks, the environmental antigenic pressure sustained by the current overload of pollen will be exhausted which, especially for grasses, this year seems to be particularly intense “.