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The Portuguese health authorities, which are finalizing the vaccination plan, will undoubtedly be attentive to what is happening in British hospitals, which are preparing to receive the first doses of the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech as of December 7., advanced the Guardian.
The process began with a case that illustrates the logistical challenges that lie ahead. The UK has already been forced to change its plans, due to the very fragile nature of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine: it must be kept at an extraordinary temperature of -70ºC, it can only be in a normal refrigerator for only five days before taking it. and should move as little as possible.
Suddenly, the British government’s plan, launched in September, which called for vaccinating first the elderly in homes and only then health professionals and people over 80 years old in hospitals, became obsolete. British health officials believe that if the vaccine “is moved more than four times, it runs the risk of becoming unstable and ineffective,” the Guardian read.
“When it reaches British hospitals, it has already been moved twice, from the Pfizer factory in Belgium, to storage points in the UK, and from there to hospitals, where it can be administered,” the news continued. Something that makes the idea of bringing the vaccine directly to homes impractical, forcing the Government to consider health professionals as the first priority in vaccination.
However, even when it comes to healthcare professionals, there is another difficulty. It is that the British government guidelines are that there are several weeks between the flu vaccine and that of the covid-19 – in recent weeks, the National Health Service has asked all employees to get a flu vaccine as soon as possible.
In any case, it is increasingly likely that older people will have to wait to get vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine and the University of Oxford. Rather than being an RNA vaccine, like the one from Pfizer and BioNTech, this vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus, a virus known to cause colds, hybridized to a SARS-CoV-2 protein. In practice, this means that it can be moved more easily and does not require such low temperatures.
The AstraZeneca and Oxford University vaccine still has the advantage of having elicited a strong immune response in the elderly during clinical trials. However, it also comes with the disadvantage that preliminary results have been somewhat confusing and show lower efficacy than RNA vaccines.
It is that “the first vaccines on the market may not be the ones with the best characteristics,” said Miguel Castanho, a researcher at the João Lobo Antunes Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM). “It may take a bit of consideration, not accepting first-timers, maintaining presence of mind, maybe even doing a wait beat.”
For now, it is known that the priority vaccination groups in Portugal should cover around 800 thousand Portuguese, including users and home professionals, health professionals and elderly people with serious illnesses that may be aggravated by Covid-19. The diseases in question at the end of last week were not yet closed. The age spectrum, on the other hand, awaits the approval of the vaccines and the Summary of the Characteristics of the Medicines of each one. The plans are expected to be more detailed this week.
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