Vaccination is still a shield of protection, said the president of the National Vaccination Committee Maria Theodoridou, referring to the new variant of the crown, Omicron, during today’s briefing on the National Vaccination Plan for COVID-19 disease.
As he mentioned the A and O in the management of an event is the composure and explained that the special element of this particular variant is the number of mutations, 32 in the number, which is present in the protein spike of the virus and that the new strain Omicron was classified as a strain of concern. . At the same time, he said that the response to the alarm of all states was instantaneous.
He noted that there are many concerns and that the scientific community needs time to provide answers. “It is not known how contagious the virus is. “Transmissibility is expected to be increased,” he said, noting that in cases with the micron variant, a disease with mild symptoms and the characteristic of young age has been observed.
She added that the issue that concerns everyone and there is great mobility in the field of companies that manufacture vaccines, is whether the protection of vaccines against this new variant is sufficient. “According to the WHO, infections are also expected in vaccinated people, but it is estimated that the size of this problem will be rather small,” said Maria Theodoridou.
As he said, according to a study in previous mutations, it seems that cellular immunity plays a key role in protecting against virus variants.
At the same time, Ms. Theodoridou referred to the results of a recent study of the Therapeutic Clinic of the Medical School of EKPA on the effectiveness of the third dose of vaccine BNT162b2 (Pfizer / BioNTech) in health professionals, announced by the Professors of EKPA Evangelos Terpos (Evangelos Terpos) , Ioannis Trougakos (Department of Biology), Vangelis Karalis (Department of Pharmacy) and Thanos Dimopoulos (Rector of EKPA). The first 71 health workers to receive the third dose of the GNA Alexandra vaccine participated in this study, nine months after they were fully vaccinated with the two doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
According to this study, the third dose of the vaccine appears to provide a strong immune response to SARS-CoV-2, dramatically reducing the incidence of serious illness and hospitalization.
All study participants (30 men and 41 women, median age 48 years), were tested for the presence of neutralizing antibodies and antibodies to the RBD portion of the virus’s protein (anti-SRBD), before the first dose of the vaccine, before second dose, 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months after the second dose and one month after the third dose. The third dose was made 9 months after the second dose of the same vaccine, ie as soon as it became available to health professionals in our country.
The mean titer of neutralizing antibodies one month after the third dose was 97.8%, higher than any other measurement at another time point (p <0.001), while the level of anti-SRBD antibodies reached the upper limit of 2500 units / mL for 70 of the 71 participants (very high antibody titer, for this method, the value of 132 units / mL has been set by the US FDA).
After the third dose, the mean increase in neutralizing antibodies and anti-SRBDs antibodies was 166.4% and 594.4%, respectively, relative to the antibody titer of the participants nine months after the second dose. The titer of neutralizing antibodies was dramatically higher than the titer two weeks after the second dose, which was the highest in the study (93%). Respectively, the titer of anti-SRBD, one month after the third dose, was 146% higher than it was two weeks after the second dose. These effects did not appear to be affected by gender or age.
In conclusion, the third dose of the vaccine induces a very high titer of both neutralizing antibodies and anti-SRBD, and this explains the reduced incidence of COVID-19 in those who have received the third dose of the vaccine.
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