All Americans aged 50 and over will have a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration (Fda), the drug regulatory agency in the United States, has just decided. Until yesterday, the second booster (which is added to the two doses of the primary cycle) was only recommended for frail and immunocompromised people. The latter category is the one for which the fourth dose is also foreseen in Italy, but the positions of the European countries are currently different, with some countries such as Great Britain, France and Germany willing to recommend the new injection.
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Ema, the European Medicines Agency, explained that there is no scientific evidence to recommend the new recall to everyone. Health Minister Roberto Speranza also reiterated this position today, but he hoped for a common position throughout the continent: “I think the time has come to discuss together, at European level, on how to deal with the coming weeks and, in particular, to work to have a univocal position on times and generational brackets to administer the fourth dose “.
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Speranza spoke to the Health Council in Brussels on Tuesday: “I ask formally, I ask for a unified position of the European countries, of our agencies, of the Commission on the fourth dose. Non-homogeneous choices in the various European countries only end up confusing and not help vaccination campaigns “. The minister explained that the Commission and the presidency have made a commitment to present a joint proposal within a week.
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Behind the American decision is the spread of Omicron 2, the even more contagious sub-variant of Omicron, responsible for the rise of cases in Europe (including Italy) and the new wave in a China forced to abandon the Covid zero policy and put new in entire city lockdown. For about a week, the United States has also seen the spread of Omicron 2 and the rise in the contagion curve. Pfizer, in recent weeks, had asked the FDA for authorization to administer the fourth dose only to people over the age of 65. The FDA has decided to further extend this range, going down to the age of 50. Moderna, on the other hand, had applied to administer the second reminder to everyone, regardless of age, but this option, Speranza recalled, “is not taken into consideration by any country in the world“.
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The opinion of science on the fourth dose, then, is far from unanimous. As usual, Israel is the country that ran further, administering the fourth dose to a large section of its population, not just the elderly. Among older people, the new recall appears to have had an effect in reducing hospitalizations and deaths, but among younger people, the results have been modest. According to an Israeli study published in the New England Journal of Medicine the antibodies rose immediately after the injection, but the number of infections avoided compared to those who had only three doses had been rather meager.
Europe, until now, has seemed more willing to wait for the autumn to widen the range of candidates for the fourth dose. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the return of the cold could bring a new wave, while in spring and summer an ebb of the virus is expected. The second is that test results on the vaccine updated to the Omicron variant should arrive in the coming months. His Pfizer and Moderna are studying it (the first announced the outcome in April, the second in August). At that point it will be easier for the EMA and the various governments to decide whether to administer the current vaccine (made on the basis of the Wuhan virus) or the updated Omicron one.