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It all started with the smallpox vaccine. It was the first vaccine against an incredible popular epidemic. A large portion of the indigenous population of the United States today likely died after the arrival of Europeans, and in Europe about ten percent of all children died in the 18th century. The virus has been considered eradicated since 1980. Thanks to vaccination.
Method, research, approval, vaccination strategy – everything was completely different more than 200 years ago. In Austria: The Dutch physician Jan Ingenhousz arrived in Vienna in 1768 on the recommendation of the English king to introduce the method of variolation. It consisted of introducing pus fluid from the pustules of sick people into healthy children. Maria Theresa’s personal physician, who lost a child to smallpox and was also ill, initially rejected this method. So they brought poor children from an orphanage in Meidling to Schönbrunn and turned them into test subjects. As the vaccination turned out to be successful, the court had its members vaccinated and Ingenhousz was sent to other Habsburg houses.
The development of a vaccine against Covid-19 has nothing to do with the atrocities of the 18th century. This year the EU Commission could approve the first Biontech / Pfizer vaccine, which is already vaccinated in the US and Britain thanks to an emergency approval. “We rely on an accurate examination,” says Health Minister Rudolf Anschober. Originally scheduled for December 29, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) could even issue a recommendation before Christmas, and the Commission, as an authority, will make a decision in three days.
It should not be feared that it will also take 200 years for the coronavirus to be eradicated. On the other hand, not having the hope that everything will end in a few months. The first vaccines that are currently in the approval process are aimed at the damage caused by the virus, and it is Covid-19 disease, as explained by the infectologist and vaccination expert Herwig Kollaritsch.
At the moment it is not known if these vaccines also prevent transmission. Only if an infection is not triggered, the vaccine also offers external protection. And only in this case can herd immunity be achieved. Until then, and around 200 vaccines are still in the early stages of development, protection can be compared to the TBE vaccine (“tick vaccine”), as Kollaritsch explains. It is pure self-protection.
One million doses of vaccine by March
Austria expects manufacturer Pfizer to deliver 250,000 doses of vaccine in January (two vaccines for 125,000 people each) and another 331,000 in February, as vaccination coordinator Clemens Martin Auer reports. The manufacturer Moderna also promised 200,000 doses of vaccines in the first quarter. There are delays with the AstraZeneca vaccine as a study must be repeated. According to Auer, approval could take place in February and then be delivered very quickly. “By March we would be on a million doses of vaccine.”
In Germany, Health Minister Jens Spahn estimates that around 60 percent of the population could be vaccinated by the end of summer. This is also what the Austrian vaccination plan offers, and immunization should be carried out extensively already in the second trimester, not just in the identified risk groups. There are a total of seven priority levels, on the one hand descending according to age, but also according to exposure (education, police, social professions, etc.). People under 16 years of age, as well as pregnant and lactating women, will not be vaccinated because they were not included in the studies.
Hours may differ for various reasons. For example, all batches are carefully controlled to ensure safety. Something can always happen during production, delivery, storage.
High vaccination rates protect the health system
Even if herd immunity cannot be achieved with pure self-protection, a high vaccination rate is important. The fewer (seriously) ill people, the lower the burden on the health system. Due to the high number of Covid patients, many other treatments could not be carried out in recent weeks. At the same time, it is also important that vaccinated people continue to observe hygiene rules.
According to studies, the effectiveness of vaccines is very high (about 95 percent), but they do not provide one hundred percent protection, even severe courses cannot be ruled out, and in one case it happened at Biontech / Pfizer. Kollaritsch also believes that it is conceivable that the protection factor will be revised a bit downward once millions of people around the world have been vaccinated. Also, it is expected that vaccinated people can transmit the virus, even to unvaccinated people.
With the active ingredient in AstraZeneca, according to Kollaritsch, there are at least subtle indications that transmission is restricted as well. In addition, there is a general hope that, in the absence of disease, at least the amount of virus will be less and that vaccinated people, therefore, will not become “epidemiological bombs”, as the doctor says. As long as vaccination does not promise external protection, the issue of compulsory vaccination, much debated, also plays a secondary role. Kollaritsch declared himself a staunch opponent of a duty, and Anschober also confirmed Monday night that he did not want to introduce any mandatory vaccinations. Bet on information.
A hotline will be established this week and the ministry’s website already has a fairly detailed question and answer catalog. “We don’t want to hide anything,” Anschober says. Among other things, it is about the new methods that generate uncertainty, as well as reactions and side effects. And there will be, as Kollaritsch explains, who among other things has also written a small book about it.
Vaccination reactions are expected
It is known from corona vaccines that the body reacts, “and that is automatically accompanied by symptoms.” It is not a disease, but a “deterioration of well-being”, as Kollaritsch puts it. This can be tiredness, a headache, or a fever. The vaccination reaction subsides after a few days. “We can be expected to feel that.”
Side effects are different, but they are very rare. You can’t tell how rare it is after a study with around 40,000 test subjects (including the placebo group). Kollaritsch gives an example: encephalitis can occur in one in a million cases of measles vaccination. It is a serious but treatable disease. In relation to this: in Austria, around one in 200 people who contract Covid dies. Full data will be available in a few months; there are reporting obligations for reactions and side effects.
In addition to protection against transmission and extremely rare side effects, the duration of protection is also an open question. But even with immunity for just one year, statistically one case of illness would be prevented for every 30 vaccines and one death for every 2000 vaccines. “There is hardly any other vaccine that has such a good record,” says Kollaritsch.
