Irene Hartmann
02/27/2021 2:26 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 02/27/2021 2:26 PM
There is some buzz around the local decision to give the
Covishield
coronavirus
vaccine
to adults 55 and over.
The question that worries is why Argentina is administering it to older adults, while
Europe only authorized its use for people between 18 and 55 years old
.
Covishield is the brand name for the
Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine
made in India.
They are identical.
A little over a week ago, the first 580,000 doses of this drug arrived and some jurisdictions decided to use it to start the campaign in older adults.
In the case of CABA, people over 80.
The cloudy air around this drug comes from
inaccuracies
that led to a misinterpretation: it was concluded that Covishield was not effective for the elderly because several countries in Europe decided not to use it, when, in fact, the European Medicines Agency (its acronym es EMA) had only observed a
lack of evidence
regarding its usefulness in the segment over 55 years of age, so it considered it prudent to “
wait
”.
Part of the European discontent is due to the
lower effectiveness
of this brand, which is around 60% to 70% when the two doses are applied, compared to more than 90% of other vaccines.
However, when consulting infectious disease specialists, it is common to find out that 60-70% is an acceptable range for vaccines in general, especially for the one given each year against the flu.
A woman in her early 80s is vaccinated against the coronavirus at a school in William Morris, Buenos Aires province.
Photo Xinhua / Martín Zabala
What did ANMAT, Argentina's drug regulatory body, think about the Covishield vaccine?
Before detailing it, a couple more questions.
The same lag (first authorizing the injection for a segment of the population and then for the rest) had occurred with the
Sputnik V
vaccine
.
Russia had not approved it for people over 60 years old and the ANMAT echoed that limitation.
Finally, both countries extended the permit.
Regarding Covishield, the EMA based its decision on the vaccine approval text, published on January 29.
There they explain that "
most of the participants in these studies were between 18 and 55 years old
" and clarify that "
there are still not enough results in the older participants (55 years old) to provide a figure of how well the vaccine will work in this group
”.
However, they clarify something nothing less: "
It is expected to give protection
, since an immune response is observed in this age group, and also based on experience with other vaccines
".
Balance
Miguel Ángel Acanfora, specialist in Gerontology and Geriatrics, told
Clarín
that “the doubts with the Sputnik vaccine were the same as there are now with the Covishield.
One wondered if the sample of the trials done with older adults was large enough or if the immunosuppressed could receive it ”.
The containers with the first 580,000 doses of Covishield vaccines that arrived in Argentina.
Photo Telam
In his opinion, “if this were the only vaccine available, no one would hesitate to give it to them.
Let's say that if you have several ties, you doubt which one to choose.
The equation that should be considered is that if the ANMAT gave the emergency authorization, it must have used its
good judgment, to know and understand
”.
One does not doubt that the experts of the local drug control body are "watching" the decisions of their peers at the EMA and the FDA, but for now
there is no access to the technical report prepared by the ANMAT
on this vaccine, they reported from that point on. organism to
Clarín.
Provision 9271/20
is available
, which authorized the commercialization of the vaccine in the country at the end of December, but does not offer any technical details.
In other words, it becomes impossible to know what the ANMAT considered about the (apparently scarce) data provided by AstraZeneca for those over 55 years of age.
The other body of international prestige, the
US
FDA
, has not yet approved this vaccine, and there are media in that country that "see it as difficult."
The reason?
Jorge Quarleri
, a doctor in Biochemistry specialized in Virology, a Conicet researcher at the Institute for Biomedical Research in Retroviruses and AIDS (INBIRS), pointed out a question that could be linked: a certain “
untidiness
” in AstraZeneca's behavior during its tests against Covid .
“The only thing that from my point of view has been quite sloppy are the
results of phase 2
, when it was learned that the greater efficacy of the vaccine had arisen from an error, which led them to apply
half of the second dose
in place the full dose.
In my opinion, it was a kind of unhappy antecedent, let's say, "he clarified.
The gap
Another issue that worries some experts is the uncertainty about what many in English call a “
gap
”, that is, the ideal period that should elapse between doses 1 and 2, when the vaccine leaflet indicates to do so within of the enormous margin of
between 4 and 12 weeks
.
Beyond these issues,
Marta Cohen
, an Argentine pathologist who lives in England and gained notoriety in the networks with her explanations about Covid-19, fully supports the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and in particular its use in older adults.
Operation for the vaccination of older adults to stop Covid 19 in Argentina.
Photo EFE / Juan Ignacio Roncoroni
In dialogue with
Clarín, he
said that the European discouragement to use it is due to a "
political issue
", a product of production limitations and the company's decision to support the export of its doses, even when Europe did not have its internal demand satisfied.
“Here (in England) the elderly were vaccinated first in nursing homes and health personnel;
then over 80 in the community, which is 19.2 million people, and
there were no serious complications
”, He reassured.
For Cohen,
the observation of the EMA "has no basis
because it has to do with how the different phases of the vaccine are constructed."
His explanation is that "phase 3 was extended to 23,000 people: first from 18-55 years and then up to 65 years. At the end of phase 3, which ended in November, a small group was added, those over 65. Logically it is a smaller group that
has less follow-up because it is the end of the investigation
. The same happened with Sputnik. In the end, when it has been seen that there are no serious complications, groups are added ".
Is it a problem to vaccinate with the first dose now and with the second in 12 weeks, that is,
when the April cool starts
?
Cohen was adamant: “The South African, Bristol and New York variants of the coronavirus have a mutation that lowers the efficiency of vaccines.
What the UK did to
give everyone a dose
seems very appropriate to me. "
It is that, he concluded, “the more it is vaccinated and faster, the lower the chain of infections.
It has already been proven that after the first dose the immunity is
67%
and is maintained for
3 months
.
If there are 10 million doses, it is convenient to vaccinate 10 million people and not 5 ”.
Look also
Covid: the unexpected deadline in which the City will give the second dose of the Covishield vaccine to people over 80
VIP vaccinated: nobody controls that each dose against the coronavirus is given to whom it belongs