Mask yes, but in your pocket. Ready to be worn in situations that require it, those most at risk, but no longer a perennial obligation. This could be the norm for next autumn Guido Rasi, former Executive Director of the European Medicines Agency EMA is now scientific director of Consulcesi, which today presented the ECM course “The Covid-19 between mutation and variants. A new challenge for vaccines and therapies, intended for doctors and healthcare professionals. A course that in the intentions of Massimo Tortorella, president of Consulcesi, should “fill the training gap that has led to vaccination hesitating some of the health workers, thus jeopardizing the behavior of the general population”.
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“The virus will not completely disappear, especially not immediately and not forever, but thanks to the vaccines the pandemic could be running out of time”, he assures Rasi.
But to put away the mask, everything has to go in the right direction in the coming months. Above all thanks to the vaccines that are, continues the former EMA director, the best weapon we have to counteract the variants, both those already known and those in the future. The vaccination campaign should pick up the pace in the first place, which however is suffering from two kinds of problems: an initial lack of strategy, with a non-optimal distribution of doses in the different age groups, and the uncertainties due to the reports of the rare ones. forms of thrombosis that could be related to the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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“Vaccines must be used with confidence – he reiterates Rasi – you have to trust science. It is right to investigate the suspected cases, but at the moment I do not see any indications to stop the campaign ”. Yet some questions are legitimate to ask. It remains to be seen, for example, whether the vaccines will also be effective against the variants that will gradually emerge. “For this year, the four vaccines authorized by the EMA have shown sufficient performances, and by the end of the year others could arrive”, he continues Rasi. On 2022 it is better not to overreact. Also because there are still too many things we don’t know. One of these is whether it makes sense to follow the British route, favoring the first dose over the recalls. Or if, given the lively effects caused by the vaccine AstraZeneca on the younger groups, it is not better to privilege the vaccination of the elderly, whose immune system is less reactive. Or if there is a genetic factor linked to the onset of these rare forms of thrombosis, which show a prevalence especially in Northern European countries. And again: given the concerns that still orbit around this vaccine, pending the evaluations of the regulatory authorities, what will happen to those who have already taken the first dose with AstraZeneca?
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“We have to think about a plan B – he continues Rasi – in the sense that it is necessary to design studies on mixed vaccinations: I imagine a very well designed and coordinated study, on volunteers who have received a first dose of the Anglo-Swedish vaccine and who then, based on the data emerging from serological tests, do the booster with another product, be it Pfizer or Modern“. In Germany, someone is already working in this direction: sharing data would be an excellent European strategy.
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Europe should also strike a blow in drug production policies. “If today we are struggling because of the promised and never arrived doses of the vaccine developed at Oxford University, it is also because today, having partially dismantled our pharmaceutical industry, we are acting as customers and not as partners. And today we are paying the consequences of short-sighted industrial policies. Italy has a great tradition in this sector and should develop strategies for the conversion of existing plants or for the creation of new ones – he concludes Rasi – in concert with Europe “.
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