“In the implemented health policy, the responsibility is not transferred to the citizens, in the context of ” we do not know if there will be benefits but the citizens can individually decide what to do with this dose of the vaccine ”, the professor emphasizes.
Given the fatigue of citizens in many countries with continuous vaccinations, we now need best vaccines. “Unless we are lucky and the virus weakens a lot so that it is no longer a major public health problem,” the Health Policy professor said in a Facebook post. Elias Mosialos of the School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Imperial College London.
As he states, “In order to stop the pandemic, we will need vaccines and drugs that will prevent the spread of the virus. The updated vaccines that we will have in the autumn season will not do that. for a long time to focus on the production of more comprehensive vaccines “.
As for the new vaccines under development, he points out that “What we do know is that the updated vaccines are designed to deal with Omicron strains that are no longer prevalent. The dilemma therefore is whether we should use them in the autumn months or continue to use existing vaccines. “The difference and the result is the ‘expansion’ of immunoprotection with our exposure to a new vaccine facing an older Omicron strain rather than the original Wuhan strain. Nevertheless the challenges will remain.”
He also adds, “At the moment we do not yet know what happens to cellular immunity, ie how many have developed cellular immunity and for how long. It is really interesting that regulators at the global and regional levels have not requested the submission and analysis of relevant data. “Even if we renew the vaccines at regular intervals, we will probably be one step behind the evolution of the virus as we are now. We will have vaccines for older Omicron strains, but not for the more recent ones.”
“Up until the advent of Delta, vaccines were relatively effective in both preventing infection for a significant proportion of those vaccinated (not all) and reducing the chance of spreading. They were very effective in reducing the chance,” he said. of the serious disease.But the data with Ομικρον and especially sub-variants 4 and 5 changedVaccines are no longer effective in preventing mild infection and also do not seem to be effective in reducing the chance of spreading. But vaccines are still very effective in reducing the chance of serious illness.
We know that the second booster dose for those over 60 and the vulnerable is recommended by vaccination committees in many countries, although there are differences. At USA the recommendation concerns those over 50, while in Great Britain over 75 living in nursing homes. The European Medicines Agency and the ECDC also point out that we do not yet have clear data for effectiveness, in order to propose the second booster dose to those under 79. Until recently our country had the same directives as EU countries (Germany and France). Nevertheless, only 17% of over 60 in our country have taken the second booster dose, although the platform has been open for 2.5 months. What would therefore be more important, from the point of view of health policy, would be to intensify efforts to increase the percentage of those vaccinated in the categories where there is safer data on the benefits offered by the 2nd booster dose. That is, to increase the percentage of vaccinated over 60 years from 17% to much higher rates. This is the public health policy that identifies the main problem and aims to address it. And it does not dwell on individual issues, especially when there is no documentation to extend policies to new categories of citizens.
In parallel with the implemented health policy, responsibility is not transferred to citizensin the context of “We do not know if there will be benefits but citizens can decide individually what to do with this dose of vaccine.” The policy of Pontius Pilate is doubtful whether it will have results while, I repeat, the main problem has not been addressed. “We have an even higher number of unvaccinated people over 60 compared to other countries in Western Europe and I again point out only 17% of those vaccinated with a second booster dose.”
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