Israel, the first country to administer the second booster, reveals the data of a first preliminary study. The premier: “Protection from infections is also growing”. Scientists’ doubts about durability and sustainability
Just two days after the approval of the fourth dose of the Covid vaccine in Israel, the prime minister Naftali Bennett reported, citing a preliminary study, that the booster increases antibodies fivefold one week after its administration. “A week after the fourth dose is injected, we know with greater certainty that it is safe and effective: there is a fivefold increase in the number of antibodies in the vaccinated person,” Bennett told reporters as he exited the Sheva Medical Center laboratory. . The cited study involved 154 volunteers who had received the third dose in August and who had a low level of antibodies.
Bennett added that the data collected so far by the Sheba Medical Center seems to indicate that the the fourth dose guarantees “much better” protection from both infections and the possibility of becoming seriously ill. «In other words – he said – the fourth dose is safe, and this is certain. And, with a very high probability, it works ». «For this reason – he continued – I am delighted that, two days after the possibility of taking a fourth dose was offered, 100,000 Israelis have already signed up to be vaccinated. Yesterday 20,000 have already had it ». Bennett then specified that Israeli scientists are busy studying the data “and then sharing them with the rest of the world.”
The fourth dose was approved in Israel, which aims to achieve herd immunity, for health workers and for the over 60s four months after the first booster, after preliminary data showed a drop in antibodies already three months after the third dose. As always, Israel will be an open-air laboratory that can provide important information to the whole world. To push the fourth dose to protect the most fragile and most exposed to the virus has contributed the spread of Omicron, with a number of infections that have touched 10 thousand cases per day, a figure reached only at the peak of the third wave in January 2021.
For now, the hypothesis of a fourth dose, in the middle of the “booster campaign” is being greeted with caution by the rest of the world. The immunologist had already expressed himself on the subject a few days ago Anthony Fauci, advisor to the president of the United States, Joe Biden: “It is premature to talk about a fourth dose,” said the immunologist. “One of the things we will be following very closely is how long the protection lasts after the third dose of an mRna vaccine.”
«It is not really sustainable, and probably not even necessary, to think of vaccinate the whole world every 4 or 6 monthsSays the professor Andrew Pollard, British virologist and pediatrician. “We have not even managed to vaccinate (with a single dose) all those who live in Africa and certainly we will not be able to make the administration of a fourth dose manageable for everyone” in the near future, Pollard insisted in an interview with BBC radio, reiterating that the need for a fourth booster is not yet “completely certain” and that, if anything, it will for now be reserved for the most vulnerable people. “But how long will the protection last with the fourth dose?Asks the immunologist from the University of Padua Antonella Viola while the virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco and the infectious disease specialist Massimo Galli they do not at all exclude the hypothesis of having to proceed with a vaccination per year, at least on the most fragile subjects, just as is done with the flu.
January 5, 2022 (change January 5, 2022 | 10:51)
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