There is no ideal vaccine. Word of Ippolito (Spallanzani)
Pfizer, Moderna and Astrazeneca vaccines are to be accepted without hesitation, because the ideal vaccine does not exist. The words of Giuseppe Ippolito, scientific director of Spallanzani and member of the CTS, on the three anti Covid drugs
“All vaccines available today in Italy are effective and safe. There is no time to wait for the ideal one ”. This is said by Giuseppe Ippolito, scientific director of Spallanzani and member of the scientific technical committee, talking about the current anti Covid vaccines that are administered in Italy.
There are three weapons at our disposal to try to stop the pandemic: the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine, the first to be approved, that of the Modern American and that produced by Astrazeneca and developed by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Italian Irbm (with a lower effectiveness).
THE WORDS OF HIPPOLITUS
For Giuseppe Ippolito, scientific director of Spallanzani, science has worked a miracle: we have three different vaccines against Covid-19 approved within a few months, effective and safe.
“All vaccines available today in Italy are effective and safe. There is no time to wait for the ideal one. The virus runs and you have to protect yourself. Science has worked a miracle, ”he said in an interview with Corriere della Sera . “At this stage of the epidemic, I believe that all vaccines that demonstrate relatively good efficacy and by relatively good we mean at least 60-70 percent should be accepted without hesitation. It is a principle all the more valid if it is accompanied by an adequate safety profile, namely the absence of serious undesirable effects ".
CALCULATION OF EFFECTIVENESS
But how is the effectiveness of the vaccine calculated? “For over a century, efficacy has meant the extent of disease onset in vaccinated versus unvaccinated. This is why clinical trials are conducted in which volunteers are randomly assigned to the group receiving the drug or to the one that will not have it and will take a placebo ”. For now we have the percentage of this.
WAITING FOR PRACTICAL EFFECTIVENESS
Instead, we await the data on practical effectiveness. “On the other hand, effectiveness in the field is different, which is defined as practical effectiveness: it is the measure of how well a vaccine works in a larger population. The efficacy is expressed as the proportion of the disease attack rate between the unvaccinated and the vaccinated or as a calculation of the relative risk of disease in the vaccinated group ”.
YOU NEED STRATEGY
Of course, if it is true that it is not possible to wait for the ideal vaccine, it is also true that in the name of known efficacy, a strategy must be implemented.
"The choice of reserving vaccines with a higher level of effectiveness for people with a higher age and who have greater risks due to concomitant diseases is the best strategy to better protect those who are most closely in danger of serious illness. and death. For those who are less at risk, the other vaccines available are also fine, ”says Ippolito.
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PFIZER'S VACCINE
This is why Pfizer's vaccine, like Moderna's, is intended for older people. The results of the studies carried out, in fact, "have shown that two doses of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine Bnt162b2 (Comirnaty) administered 21 days apart can prevent 95% of adults aged 16 and over from developing the Covid-19 disease with substantially homogeneous results for age, gender and ethnic groups. The 95% reduction refers to the difference between the 162 cases that occurred in the group of over 18 thousand who received the placebo and the only 8 cases that occurred in the over 18 thousand who received the vaccine ”, explains Aifa.
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE MODERNA VACCINE
The Moderna vaccine is also very effective and intended for a more fragile audience, whose "effectiveness has been calculated on about 28,000 people aged between 18 and 94 years, who did not show signs of previous infection".
"The study – explains Aifa, taking up the indications of the EMA , the European Medicines Agency – showed that the number of symptomatic cases of Covid-19 was reduced by 94.1% in the subjects who had received the vaccine ( 11 out of 14,134 vaccinated people had COVID-19 with symptoms), compared to those who received a sham injection (out of 14,073 people who were given a sham injection, 185 had COVID-19 with symptoms). This means that the vaccine was shown to be 94.1% effective in the study ”.
Not only. “It has also been shown to be 90.9% effective in participants at risk of severe Covid-19, including those with chronic lung disease, heart disease, obesity, liver disease, diabetes or HIV infection. The efficacy remained high regardless of sex, population and ethnicity ".
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE ASTRAZENECA VACCINE
Less suitable for administration in elderly people, however, is the Astrazeneca vaccine, which has shown an efficacy of "59.5% in reducing symptomatic Covid-19 infections", writes Aifa.
REVALUATION IN PROGRESS?
Effectiveness, however, which could be revised upwards by Ema, according to what stated Piero Di Lorenzo, CEO of Irbm of Pomezia, who collaborated in the development of the vaccine.
"The supply" of the serum "will soon reach full capacity and the effectiveness could rise to 82% after a re-evaluation of the EMA," Di Lorenzo said in an interview with the press . “AstraZeneca has concluded other trials showing 76% efficacy with one dose, rising to 82 with the second after three months, with peaks of 92. Furthermore, the percentage discovered would not develop the disease severely. The new study was sent to the Lancet magazine and will arrive at the EMA in a few days ”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/non-esiste-un-vaccino-ideale-parola-di-ippolito-spallanzani/ on Mon, 08 Feb 2021 12:43:31 +0000.