missed 40 million doses

In Italy’s Covid vaccination plan calendar, there are at least two boxes to correct. In total, 202 million doses were expected in 2021, as part of the maximum purchase by the optional European Union with six different groups. From Sanofi-Gsk, 40.2 million doses were scheduled to arrive starting in June 2021, the most massive amount alongside that of AstraZeneca. Well, yesterday the cold shower: the two companies have announced a delay in their Covid-19 vaccine program based on recombinant proteins to improve the immune response in the elderly. “Interim results of the phase 1/2 study, says a note, showed an immune response comparable to that of recovered Covid-19 patients in adults ages 18 to 49, but a low immune response in the elderly likely due to insufficient antigen concentration. ”We then moved on to a phase 2b study with an improved antigen formulation, which will begin in February. The new product will be available, hopefully, only by the end of 2021.

TIMES
AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish giant, which produces and markets the vaccine developed by Oxford with the contribution of Irbm, a Pomezia company, has slowed down in recent weeks and, despite having published the trial data in The Lancet, It has not yet applied for the ‘authorization to Ema (the European regulatory agency), because, during the tests, it realized that the effectiveness is greater with a different dose than expected. This caused a slowdown and, therefore, also the expected supply since the beginning of January (16 million in the first quarter, 24 in the second) postponed a few months. In summary, Italy will initially be able to count on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which will however arrive with initial quantities not comparable to those planned for AstraZeneca: 8.7 million doses in the first quarter, 8.7 million in the second.

In the first six months of 2021, the program also includes 5 million doses of Moderna (but we do not yet know when there will be authorization, which is considered imminent) and 7.5 million doses of Curevac (to understand, however, if and when will it be available). Bottom line: the start of the vaccination campaign will be slow and will likely focus primarily on Pfizer. It is not only valid for Italy, but for the entire European Union, as it is a common strategy. For this reason, for EU countries, a “vaccine day” is being considered, with simultaneous departure. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, said: “I don’t know if we can guarantee that vaccinations start at exactly the same time in all EU countries, but we want to make sure they are administered in a very coordinated way.” Meanwhile, the US has previously purchased 100 million doses of the Moderna vaccine after Pfizer’s 100 million.

REALIZE
Yesterday, on the website of the Council Presidency, the call was published to hire 3,000 doctors and 12,000 nurses for the mass vaccination operation. But the knot remains: if at first there will be only Pfizer vaccine, the times are getting longer. Professor Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino Hospital in Genoa, warns: “I don’t think we will have few doses at the beginning, but the opposite problem, which is much more serious: many people will not want to be vaccinated. “Italy and France are the two nations with the highest presence of no vax and this is a serious problem. In my opinion, we should start a promotional and information campaign right now. Even among health workers there is too much distrust, I would agree with a law that requires them to vaccinate. It serves to defend them from contagion, but also to protect their patients ”.

Last Updated: 07:40 AM


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