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Twelve months after the first known covid-19 outbreak in China, the UK today begins immunizing the first people in line for what will be the largest vaccination program in UK history. The strategy has been informally dubbed “V-Day”, a nickname that refers to the day of victory (Victory Day) against the Nazis in World War II and now to “Vaccine Day”.
Doses of the vaccine produced by Pfizer / BioNTech will be distributed in some 70 UK hospitals to people over 80 years of age and some of the professionals working in health units and nursing homes.
The program aims to protect the most vulnerable and exposed at first and to allow a return to “normality” when a large part of the population is immunized.
A doctor with nine grandchildren, Hari Shukla, 87, said he was “delighted to do my part” by being vaccinated Tuesday.
“I feel like it’s my duty to do this and do everything I can to help,” said Shukla, who will receive his vaccination at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, with his wife, Ranjan.
The UK will be the first country in the world to start using the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine after regulators approved its use last week.
Vaccination is not mandatory in the country.
Health Minister Matt Hancock said there was now “light at the end of the tunnel.” “We are going to look back today, V-Day, as a key moment in our fight against this terrible disease.”
Those administering the vaccine will be the first to receive vaccinations in Scotland, while healthcare professionals will be first in line in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson recalled that people must maintain the security measures taken across the country to prevent the spread of the disease, such as social distance and strict hand hygiene, while the vaccination program gains traction.
Authorities estimate that most of the restrictions could be lifted until Easter, if all goes well with mass immunization.
So far, more than 60,000 people have died in the UK from COVID-19 infection, according to official data.
The government guaranteed 800,000 doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine to start the program. But 40 million doses were ordered in total, enough for 20 million people since two applications are needed.
It is estimated that 4 million doses will be distributed by the end of 2020, at a slower rate than expected due to problems with the manufacture of immunizers. Before the goal, 10 million were immunized this year.
Massive effort
Refrigerated containers with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, which requires temperatures below -70ºC in part of the journey from the factory to the application, have arrived in the United Kingdom in recent days from Belgium, where they are manufactured, and distributed through the chain cold assembled. on British soil.
This logistics has proven to be quite complicated at the beginning of the process, since the vaccines are stored in packages of 975 doses each and cannot be divided into smaller batches.
This became an obstacle to immunizing many of the elderly living in nursing homes in this first phase of implementation of the vaccination schedule. This group is considered the highest priority of all.
The NHS (the national health system, a kind of British SUS) awaits the guidance of the agency responsible for the vaccine to know how to overcome this logistical obstacle (without affecting the effectiveness of the vaccine) and to be able to send smaller batches to households of the elderly, for example. .
When this happens, it will pave the way for vaccination in more than 1,000 health units around the country, in addition to the nursing homes and mass vaccination centers that are being planned in convention centers, sports stadiums and leisure centers in 2021.
The vaccine is given in two injections, 21 days apart, and the second dose is considered a booster. Immunity begins to manifest itself after the first dose, but reaches its full effect seven days after the second dose.
Most of the reported side effects are very mild, similar to the side effects after any other vaccine, such as arm pain, and generally last for a day. So far, no serious adverse effects have been identified during studies with tens of thousands of people.
Based on the results of studies conducted by Pfizer / BioNTech, the vaccine was 95% effective for all age groups in the trials, including the elderly.
But it is not yet known how long the immunity it provides lasts or if people cannot transmit the virus to other people.
Is it Brazil?
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (no party) wrote yesterday on his Twitter that the government will offer free vaccines to the population as approved by ANVISA (National Health Surveillance Agency). According to him, vaccination will not be mandatory.
The main bet of the Bolsonaro government for the vaccination against covid-19 passes through the immunizer created by the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical AstraZeneca, which has the potential to immunize 130 million people in Brazil by the end of 2021. But this vaccine has not yet. it concluded its clinical trials and was not approved by Anvisa.
For this reason, the federal government has been under pressure to expand its range of vaccine options, including that from Pfizer / BioNTech and Sinovac, which will be produced in partnership with the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, but has also not concluded the phase of clinical studies.
Each of these options has an obstacle in the eyes of the government. Sinovac has a strong political component, as it has been presented as an asset of João Doria (PSDB), the governor of São Paulo and the discontent of Bolsonaro. Doria announced yesterday that vaccination will begin in the state on January 25, 2021, even without the testing and approval process from Anvisa having been completed.
On the other hand, the Pfizer / BioNTech immunizer has the logistical challenge involved. Since doses must be stored below -70 ° C, a temperature that requires special equipment, this requirement can make it difficult to transport and reach doses to more remote regions with little infrastructure.
According to Arnaldo Medeiros, secretary of Sanitary Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, Brazil intends to prioritize immunizers that are adapted to the infrastructure of vaccination rooms throughout the country.
But he reiterated that the government has not ruled out any vaccine so far. “It is extremely important to notify the Brazilian population that the Ministry of Health, through the National Immunization Program, does not rule out any vaccine. What we want is a vaccine that is registered in Anvisa and that shows the necessary efficacy and safety.”
At first, the federal government plans to start the national immunization program against COVID-19 in March, but governors and mayors have been pushing for the strategy to start as soon as Anvisa approves an immunizer.
There are other candidate vaccines in the process of completing their studies and starting the approval process in Brazil, such as Sputnik V, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna. But neither they, nor Pfizer / BioNTech, AstraZeneca / Oxford or Sinovac, have reached that point yet.
