“I have always said, and I keep saying, that a fourth” anti-Covid “dose made now with the same vaccine, old and at least 2 years old and targeted against a viral strain no longer present in the world, is just absurd. from the theoretical point of view “. Arnaldo Caruso, president of the Italian Society of Virology (Siv-Isv), in an interview with time.news Salute says he is “frankly amazed by the American FDA” which yesterday gave the green light to a second booster of Pfizer’s mRna vaccines and Modern for the over 50s, as well as for the immunosuppressed. But the expert expresses “surprise” and also asks questions about Big Pharma: “Do you prefer to run out of stocks of old products before offering new ones? To want to think badly, but I don’t want to do it – he specifies – one would almost ask oneself “.
“With these vaccines – recalls Caruso, professor of microbiology and clinical microbiology at the University of Brescia and director of the laboratory of microbiology of the Asst Spedali Civili – we have the possibility to quickly update the formulation to the new viral variants circulating. after all, “with different vaccines and even less flexible for the technology used,” we do every year against the flu. Instead we still haven’t been able to do it for Covid-19 and so I wonder if we should attribute it to a difficult moment in the industry pharmaceutical or, in a worse way, if we have to imagine that there are deposits to be emptied “.
“I don’t want to come to believe it”, reiterates the virologist. But not even he wants to think that, faced with the advance of Omicron 2, “one can be so desperate as to hope that a fourth dose of old vaccines will help if the effect of the third is not enough”.
“By continuing to give the same dose of the same vaccine”, even more so if to people without particular health problems, who with an Omicron ‘version’ coronavirus “are quick enough to negativize or not inclined to positivize themselves in a risky way – the president reasons. of Italian virologists – we continue to provide the immune system with the same type of stimulation. The strength of mRna vaccines – he remembers – is that of mainly enhancing the antibody response, more than the cell-mediated one “. So, “if we really have to decide that a fourth dose is needed now, then” according to Caruso “it is better evaluate the possibility of using products that work with different mechanisms“, so as to provide the body with a more complete ‘shield’.
But does a second booster need to do it now or later? “In the meantime, now”, highlights the specialist, the curve is flattening out and, thanks to the arrival of summer, “we are facing a decrease in cases. So”, also to respond to the request for a clear and shared position, which Health Minister Roberto Speranza yesterday urged in the EU, “I think of the opportunity to administer in October, before the new peak that we expect and which we hope will be contained, a vaccine which, however, is updated to the latest variant in circulation“.
In short, Caruso’s advice is to wait for autumn and newer products. Also because, “even looking at the data of Israel – he remarks – there are very mixed rumors about the fourth dose. There are those who even considered it counterproductive “, made so close and with the same products.
If, on the other hand, a fourth dose is deemed appropriate before October, “then one could think of a vaccine other than the mRna ones – insists the number one of the Siv-Isv – to at least give different stimuli to immunity and generate a little protection. The strategies “to combine different defense mechanisms” exist and are known at an immunological and virological level. While the positive opinion now given to a fourth dose of the same vaccines seems to me such a strong banality that – Caruso repeats – we are he asks why you want to use old products so ‘blindly’, without thinking too much about it “. And “it is surprising – he insisted – that the FDA, generally always very careful, does so”.
“Why want to use in fourth dose, now, once again mRna vaccines not updated to the circulating variants?”, Asks the expert again. “Other platforms could be used – he suggests – Also because we have seen from very recent data, those published in ‘The Lancet’ and relating to Sputnik, Sinopharm and AstraZeneca, which in the end also products that at the time we discarded in favor of those to mRna they give interesting results. To demonstrate how, probably, there has been a sort of unjustified foreclosure “.
“Definitely, if we really are desperate and want to revaccinate now not only the immunocompromised but also particular age groupsand if the pharmaceutical companies have not been able to update the vaccines to mRna, at least – concludes the president of the Italian virologists – we consider doing it with a different vaccine“.