Some scientists believe that countries should get a Covid-19 vaccine every year, or every few years like a flu shot, because people’s immunity weakens over time.
“To control the epidemic, we need regular vaccinations. But we don’t know if it should be every year, every two years or every five years. We will have an answer when we collect more data,” said dr. Archana Chatterjee, dean of the Chicago School of Medicine, Rosalind Franklin University.
The Vaccine Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is scheduled to meet on April 6 to discuss future booster doses of the vaccine. The meeting was intended to assist the FDA in developing a general schedule for booster doses, ensuring that the vaccine is designed to attack a specific strain of Covid-19.
The day before the FDA announced the meeting, the agency’s former commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, said he supports the annual Covid-19 vaccine.
“I think we can get vaccinated every year, at least for the foreseeable future, until we really understand the epidemiology of this disease, understand whether Covid-19 will disappear like the four flu strains of the previous coronavirus or not,” he said. Dr. Gottlieb.
Corona viruses first infected humans in the 1960s, including four strains that cause the common cold. Another strain causes SARS, MERS.
“The Covid-19 vaccine is effective for six months, preventing symptomatic infection. Thus, it could become an annual vaccine for most Americans,” said Gottlieb.
A bottle of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, January 16. Photo: Reuters
Experts say that Covid-19 won’t go away anytime soon. An epidemic will turn into a circulating pathogen that often appears in the community without having a major impact on health and society like a pandemic.
“Essentially, we don’t expect the virus to go away completely. It’s possible that the pathogen recurs every year, and our immunity weakens over time,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease expert at Stanford University.
Many studies have shown that immunity from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines can be reduced over several months, especially in older and weaker people.
“Weak immunity plus a mutated virus makes it impossible to predict future outbreaks. We will soon need one more booster shot and adapt the vaccine to better match the spread of the dominant strain. Lan, maybe by the end of the year in my prediction,” Karan said. .
Some experts suspect that future routine vaccinations will totally different recipe with the type currently in use. Several large companies are developing universal vaccines that will work against every variant of nCoV in circulation.
Pfizer and Moderna say they are working on a specific vaccine against Omicron, though it’s not clear if that’s needed. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said: “The goal is to create a vaccine that remains effective for at least one year. If it works, we can go back to how it was.”
Biotech companies Moderna and Novavax are also working on a two-in-one vaccine that prevents the flu and Covid-19. According to Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, the goal is to have a vaccine that can be repeated every year, but minimizes the number of shots people have to take.
Thu Linh (Based on CNN)
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