[ad_1]
According to the immunologist from the VU Life Sciences Center, it is not very good that there is a field of discussion, because the safety of this vaccine for the elderly should not be a doubt.
“When the European Medicines Agency registered the vaccine, it was registered that it could be given to anyone over 18 years of age and there were no age restrictions. But all the controversy arose from the fact that when AstraZeneca conducted the Phase III clinical trials, it was not they included a large enough number of older people.
And that percentage of people who attended is around 6 percent. of all subjects over 65 years of age. age. Therefore, the best efficacy of the vaccine has been studied in the age group up to 55 years. age, ”he explained.
Older people have fewer side effects
However, the professor noted that even among the small older people enrolled in the study, no more pronounced adverse reactions were reported.
“On the contrary, these side effects are less common in the elderly. A similar trend is seen with other vaccines: Pfizer, Moderna. But it is related to the immune response of the system, it is less pronounced in an older person,” noted A. Žvirblienė.
He noted that the key question now is effectiveness: what percentage of people are protected from that vaccine.
“This efficiency is expressed in two indicators. One is protection against severe forms of COVID-19 and death. Here you are equally protected for both the old and the young, as there were no serious forms of the disease and deaths from COVID-19 among those who received the vaccine. And in the placebo group, there were 10 cases in which the volunteers were hospitalized, seriously ill, and there was one case of death.
Another measure of effectiveness was the number of infections in people who received placebo and who received the vaccine. That’s the efficiency at about 70 percent. And this number of infections did not differ between the old and the young. So there would be no reason to think that those older people are less well protected than older ones. The only thing is that this group was statistically much smaller ”, explained the immunologist.
According to her, the decision to test people of a certain age group in this case is based on the fact that we have a selection of vaccines.
“But the most important thing here is to evaluate if we want to vaccinate the groups at risk as soon as possible so that they are protected as quickly as possible, even if the effectiveness is a little lower, or if we decide to wait anyway. But then these older people are still at risk of becoming infected and seriously ill, ”the researcher noted.
Until now, dedicated to educators
The portal tv3.lt recalls that the Medicines Control Agency announced this week that the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe for all age groups.
However, the Minister of Health Arūnas Dulkys announced that so far it has been decided to vaccinate her no older than 55 years. elderly. The minister explained that this would be the most effective way to use the vaccine.
However, when asked if vaccines could be given to older people in the future, he said it would still be under consideration.
“I would like to say that we are still clarifying with colleagues from other countries, because those decisions are very different in the countries of the European Union,” the minister said at a press conference on Wednesday.
According to him, the quantities of these vaccines are now relatively small and are the most relevant for vaccinating educators, so the vaccine is administered to educators under 55 years of age.
“With the arrival of more vaccines and seeing what the priority group will be, we will probably make those decisions and we will make them. We know what the Lithuanian experts recommend us, we have requested the knowledge of the State Drug Control Service, we will examine the arguments of colleagues from other countries and, apparently, we will make decisions, ”said A. Dulkys.
However, educators themselves are not happy with this decision and would like to get vaccinated with another manufacturer’s vaccine.
Another type of vaccine
A. Žvirblienė recalled that until now a similar type: RNA vaccines had reached Lithuania. At that time, the vaccine from the manufacturer of AstraZeneca works on a different principle.
“This vaccine is based on a DNA virus. The vaccine contains an adenovirus, a virus that we are constantly exposed to and that causes mild or no cold symptoms. Therefore, they are considered harmless.
However, this virus has been altered, modified, and parts removed to allow it to reproduce. In other words, when the vaccine is administered, the virus cannot multiply in our body. Simply used as a vector, a carrier that carries a DNA sequence encoding a viral protein. This is the same goal for vaccines as for the RNA vaccine ”, explained the immunologist.
At the same time, he pointed out that although the principle of presenting genetic material is different, unlike the case of Pfizer and Moderna, both the RNA and DNA molecules encode a viral protein. It is then produced in our cells and thus creates an immune response.
The portal tv3.lt recalls that RNA is a synthetic vaccine, the active part of which is a synthetic modified information RNA (mRNA) molecule that encodes the peak glycoprotein (S) analog of the SARS-CoV virus. -two. The mRNA sends a message to human cells about the specific viral proteins it needs to produce in order for those proteins to elicit an immune response to the coronavirus.
Vaccines from three manufacturers, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, are currently registered in the European Union and supplied to Lithuania.
[ad_2]
