Ekaterina Ivanova – Any safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19 may not need to be given annually, unlike flu vaccines, said Dr. Richard Mihigo, area manager of the immunization program and vaccine development at the Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Africa, he told Sputnik in an interview.
“It is difficult to predict now how long the effect of the vaccine will last. It is true that for flu vaccines, most of the time we need to repeat it every year, depending on the different strains of the virus that are seasonal to the north, west, etc. For the coronavirus, we believe that may not necessarily be the case. , ”Dr. Mihigo commented.
Citing ongoing phase 3 clinical trials of several candidate vaccines in South Africa, as well as therapeutic treatments such as the steroid dexamethasone, the WHO official said it was unclear how long it will take to obtain conclusive test results.
“Our role is to create an enabling environment in which these therapies, these vaccines can be tested. And then we look at what the outcome of such clinical trials will be. It is very difficult to predict when [we will see] the result, ”said Dr. Mihigo.
Three vaccine producers, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, are conducting candidate vaccine trials in South Africa, the WHO official said.
“We have some ongoing clinical trials, mainly in South Africa … The AstraZeneca trial started a couple of weeks ago. We have a Novavax vaccine that also started in South Africa and more recently the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that also started in South Africa. Other countries have also been contacted – Kenya, Uganda – but clinical trials have not started there yet, ”said Dr. Mihigo.
Johnson & Johnson announced Tuesday that clinical trials of its candidate COVID-19 vaccine would be halted after a patient developed symptoms of an “unexplained” illness.
AstraZeneca, which is producing its candidate vaccine in conjunction with the UK’s Oxford University, was also forced to temporarily suspend its trials in early September after adverse side effects were seen in one patient.
Kirill Dmitriev, director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), has said that Russian vaccines against Covid-19, which are based on the well-researched human adenovirus platform, may prove safer than the use of Western vaccines that are based on a chimpanzee. adenovirus.
RDIF is producing the Sputnik V vaccine together with its developer, the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.
.
