How much money has Italy spent on the Novavax vaccine?
There are still about 4 million and 39 thousand over 18s in Italy who have not received even a dose. The Novavax vaccine was supposed to reduce this number but things did not go that way …
It will be the arrival of spring, the less attention paid to Covid but vaccinations are no longer advancing, especially among those 4 million and 39 thousand over 18 who despite the possibility of receiving Nuvaxovid, the Novavax vaccine, continue undeterred not to want to know. .
HOW MANY DOSES WE HAVE AND HOW MUCH MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT
On 28 February, one million and 23 thousand doses arrived in Italy which the extraordinary commissioner for the emergency, General Francesco Figliuolo (who with the end of the state of emergency will pass his duties to a new mission unit), distributed through its structure to the regions.
Of this million and 23 thousand doses, to date, La Stampa writes, "just over 16 thousand have been administered, a paltry 1.6% of the total", for a cost of about 20 million euros. Money wasted so far given the lack of turnout of the unvaccinated.
WHO IS THE NOVAVAX VACCINE ADDRESSED TO?
The Novavax vaccine, as stated on the website of the Ministry of Health, has been authorized by the European Medicines Agency (Ema) for those over 18 years old and by the Italian Medicines Agency (Aifa) only for those who are not they have yet to receive any doses of the other previously licensed vaccines.
THE PROTEIN VACCINE THAT HAD TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
The No Vax have often boasted, among the most varied reasons, of not wanting to be administered the new generation vaccines developed with mRna technology. Well, the Novavax vaccine is quite different from these. It is a protein vaccine, in fact, which means that to provoke an immune response it supplies the cells with proteins and adjuvants, rather than a fragment of the genetic code.
Protein vaccines are a type of drug that has already been used for decades against diseases such as pertussis, hepatitis and meningitis, herpes zoster and other viral infections. This is why it can be said that they have a long history of studies and tests of safety and efficacy behind them.
Evidence that, however, does not seem to be enough for those who have decided they can do without vaccination.
EXPECTATIONS (DISAPPOINTED)
Many experts were of the opinion that the Novavax vaccine would give the vaccination campaign a further twist. Before the doses landed in Italy, the immunologist Antonella Viola , scientific director of the pediatric research institute Città della Speranza in Padua, told Repubblica : "It is a classic vaccine […] There being nothing experimental or new in this technology, those who, even if they are wrong, do not trust mRna vaccines (and not vaccines in general) with Novavax have no more excuses ”.
But expectations were soon disappointed. “The hope that this vaccine, based on a more traditional technology than the innovative mRna vaccines, could convince the undecided was rejected. Unfortunately, on the front of the new vaccinated, there is no boom ”, stated on 10 March President Gimbe, Nino Cartabellotta .
THE TREND OF THE PANDEMIC
If it is true that for weeks there has been a decrease in the number of people hospitalized, the latest monitoring by the Ministry of Health, but also by the Gimbe Foundation, report that the number of new cases is increasing.
Furthermore, transmissibility and incidence increase and epidemic risk worsens in almost all Italian regions. Walter Ricciardi , consultant to Minister Roberto Speranza, in fact recalled that "the virus is still pandemic" and "if we let our guard down at this stage then in June and July the increase could be exponential and have a flare-up of the phenomenon".
The age group with the highest weekly incidence rate, according to the Ministry, is the 10-19 age group. The lowest but still very high and increasing incidence compared to the previous week is still found in the 70-79 and 80-89 age groups.
HOW VACCINATIONS GO
The state of emergency will end in exactly one week and therefore the obligation of the Super Green pass for workers over 50 and to get on public transport will fall. From 1 May then the basic Green pass will also be abolished everywhere, i.e. the one obtained with a molecular or rapid negative buffer.
All reasons that probably cause vaccinations to proceed slowly, not to say that they have almost stopped. The first doses advance very little: on Tuesday, La Stampa reports, they were 989 and the day before 2,037. Even the third doses, however, are not much better: 39,200 were administered on Tuesday and a few hundred more the day before.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/quanti-soldi-speso-italia-per-il-vaccino-di-novavax/ on Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:55:33 +0000.