Lto fourth dose of vaccinewhich will not concern the general population, but only the category of the most fragile, has begun its journey.
Fourth dose vaccine: open road
L’Aifa, the Italian Medicines Agency, as requested by Ministry of Health has, in fact, already fixed, for the next February 25th an extraordinary meeting of the scientific technical commission to discuss the news. The available data will be analyzed, including those of other countries such as Israel and, probably then the green light will come.
The booster will only be for the “fragile”
The booster, a definition that health care managers find more pertinent than the fourth dose, will concern, as we said, only the immunosuppressed, a number of citizens between 500 thousand and one million, i.e. those who have undergone transplants or suffer from certain pathologies, such as cancer patients or those who take drugs that they reduce the action of the immune system.
For them, in fact, as explained in a circular from the Ministry of Health, the third dose is “additional”, that is, it is considered a completion of the primary vaccination course. Unlike the general population for which the primary vaccination course consists of two doses, completed by the third which, however, is a real attraction.
If everything goes as it should go, it is likely that the Regions will be able to proceed as early as next week.
Is a vaccine for all variants possible?
Meanwhile, on the studies front, the first tests that could lead to the creation of a vaccine capable of counteracting all variants were positive. Leading the study, just published in the journal Viruses, were the researchers of the National Center for Global Health of the Higher Institute of Health.
The method is based on a new strategy that he selected as target protein N, less known than the now very famous spike protein that the virus uses to latch onto and enter cells. Tests would show that this innovative new approach generates an immune response effective and long-lasting in mice infected with Sars-CoV-2.
In fact, even if the contagion curve is down, the the risk of new variants is a worrying unknown. Hence the need to fine-tune “wide-ranging” vaccines of efficacy compared to variants of the Sars-CoV-2 virus. And the new ISS study represents a first important step in this direction.
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