“The third dose of Covid vaccine is a leap in the dark because it is not known whether to use the same vaccine preparation, and probably there would be a need to use another vaccine preparation” with updates on the variants, “it is not known what the situation is. immune system of those who have been vaccinated and those who have already had a decay of antibodies “. Virologist Francesco Menichetti, head of Infectious Diseases at the Pisa hospital tells time.news Health about the hypothesis of a recall of the vaccine for the immunized.
“Surely evaluating person by person is very complex – admits the doctor – but we could already orient ourselves for decades because in general the higher decades are those most exposed to a decay of the antibody response, so starting from the over 80s and sampling the antibodies and then go down to the over 70s, to the over 60s with a progressive, not forgetting the fragile “.
The virologist then invites us to “think of monoclonal antibodies as an alternative to the vaccine. There are categories affected by various types of immunodeficiencies that do not respond to vaccines and need protection”.
Monoclonals, he explains, “are antibodies that you don’t have to produce but are already beautiful and produced, they are protective, last for months, have a very broad spectrum of activity that includes variants and therefore are an alternative to the vaccine or a vaccine supplement. very, very interesting “.
“The only problem – he adds – is their clinical validation and cost, but where we could contain the cost it would be an intramuscular preparation that is easy to administer, almost at home, so it would be really important to have it. Just as important it would be to have one or more. more oral antiviral drugs. For those refractory to the vaccine it must be said that there are also these possible alternatives. Why not say it? We would not be balanced in our judgment. tetanus is not the same but very similar “.