The first vaccines against the coronavirus began to be applied just when the number of infections and deaths from covid – 24 shot up again in many countries.
And that, along with the slowness of a process that for the moment has started especially in some of the richest countries in the world , has ended raising awareness that the end of the pandemic is clearly not around the corner.
Anna Mouser, Head of Vaccine Policy and Advocacy at l Wellcome Trust -one of the most important health research NGOs in the world- nevertheless considers that, in the midst of everything, the news is good.
But in an interview with BBC Mundo he also warns that if the vaccination effort is not truly global, even the vaccinated populations of the richest countries and will be threatened by new mutations of the coronavirus.
Are you surprised by the slowness with which it seems to be advancing the vaccination process?
I think that to start you have to take a step back and look at the context: this is and will be the largest vaccine launch ever. It really is a huge task. And while I understand that with the pandemic as it is, people everywhere are impatient and frustrated – for many the vaccine might not arrive soon enough – it seems to me that things are moving relatively fast, even if it doesn’t seem like it.
Why in Europe vaccination against covid – 24 has started so slow Part of the problem is that many of the vaccines still have some hurdles to overcome. At the moment only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been fully approved. The United Kingdom, India and Mexico have also approved the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, but it has not been approved by the FDA or the EMA, which are the US and European regulators, which is what would allow its approval by the WHO.
That is one of the reasons why things are taking time: because there are regulatory processes that have to be completed. Regulators are going as fast as they can – I’ve heard reports from regulators working 29 hours a day – but that’s an essential step in making sure vaccines are safe and effective.
The first vaccine approved by the WHO was that of Pfizer and BioNTech. Now, in addition to regulatory processes, I think one of the biggest challenges will be that many countries in the world probably do not have platforms to immunize adult populations. Most vaccines are usually given to children, and that too is done in a staggered fashion – shots are given throughout the year, when children are born, or when they reach different ages.
But this is really different. I know that some countries have vaccination programs against influenza, with which we reach the elderly and health workers, which is more similar to what we are seeing, but in many countries where there are no vaccination programs against influenza will have to create mechanisms from scratch to immunize the entire population, which is really difficult.
The country’s strategy with the vaccination rate against covid – 24 highest in the world As I said, I think impatience and frustration are Understandably, the situation is really difficult for everyone at the moment, but it is extremely important that we remain calm, that we make steady progress in launching vaccines, and that we focus on making vaccination as simple as possible. For all people, wherever they live.
Many countries are not used to vaccinating their adult population. But in the latter there are also obvious delays …
Certainly. Equitable access is a major issue. The world needs to work together to ensure that all healthcare workers, wherever they live, are immunized. And not just healthcare workers: we have to make sure that priority groups around the world are immunized. It really takes a global effort, and only a global effort can guarantee that we can end the pandemic.
What level of vaccination against covid – 24 is needed to return to “normal life” Now, what is happening right now is that the first vaccines are only being administered in high-income countries. And people, understandably, are wondering why, and the answer has to do with COVAX, the primary mechanism for ensuring doses get to everyone.
Today, COVAX It does not have a signed agreement with Pfizer and I do not think they have done it with Moderna either. So we are really waiting for the approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine for vaccination to really start globally. But I think it is very important that all pharmaceutical companies seek to provide doses and reach agreements with COVAX.
And it is also vitally important that governments, particularly those of high-rise countries revenues that are already administering vaccines, invest in this global effort, to ensure that not only are their national populations being vaccinated, because this is a crucial moment for multilateral efforts and global unity.
Mouser believes that richer countries should provide vaccines to priority populations of everyone before concentrating on vaccinating their entire population. And why should they? In other words, what is the consequence of immunizing the population itself and ignoring the rest of the world?
Because that would allow the virus to continue spreading uncontrollably in other parts of the world. On the one hand, this has obvious human and economic costs, especially in the affected areas. But also, the longer we allow the virus to move freely among the population, anywhere in the world, the greater the risk of mutations.
And we have already seen how the situation of the pandemic changed radically in this last month with the appearance of new strains. We know that the UK strain is spreading quite quickly here and in many other countries, because it is much more transmissible, and there is also the South African strain, which appears to be a different mutation that may render some potential treatments ineffective.
So it is about containing the spread of the virus as much as possible, because that will increase the chances of reducing possible mutations.
At the same time, we live in a very globalized world and already We saw how fast the virus spreads. Countries cannot be completely isolated. And if our answer is country by country, we will see how the new strains spread. For all of us to be protected, vaccination really has to be global.
Some vaccines are viewed with more suspicion than others, So what do you think will be the effect on future vaccination campaigns? Will help people to remember how important vaccines are, or will it fuel the skepticism seeded by the anti-vaccine movements ?
My hope is that when the surrounding countries start vaccinating against COVID, their immunization systems will be strengthened. Because there are many countries that have not done anything like that in a long time, since they have not had to face infectious diseases. Indeed, in many countries the threat of infectious diseases has been quite low for many years and we have forgotten what it feels like to live with that level of risk, that level of concern in our lives. And, in that sense, I think this is all a powerful reminder of what vaccines do for us every day.
Before, every summer parents were worried about polio, they closed swimming pools, public places were locked. I hadn’t realized it before the pandemic started, but lockdowns were something that happened quite often because of polio. And now we have almost completely eliminated it from the planet. So I hope this all underscores the amazing work vaccines do and reminds us and strengthens our systems.
At the same time, without However, there is also a risk. If things are not done well, if communications are poor, there is a risk that misinformation will gain ground. I hope that is not the case. But for that, community participation is absolutely vital in any part of the world where the vaccine is implemented.
There are community leaders who need to participate in the process. You have to rely on them, religious groups, etc., to build trust. Try to understand what might prevent people from receiving a vaccine.
It is also really important to make sure that the vaccination systems are well designed. We know from accumulating evidence that it is often primarily practical factors that stand between people and vaccines. And if for some reason the vaccines do not arrive at the right place at the right time, and people travel to get vaccinated and there are no doses available, that bad experience may cause them not to go the next time.
Those kinds of things may not be as visible as the threat of misinformation and conspiracy theories, but those details are what really make a big difference in how successful the vaccine launch can be.
If things are do well, the covid pandemic will reaffirm the importance of vaccines. Vaccines have been presented as a turning point, but also are has warned that they are not a magic bullet. What must continue to be done so that vaccination really marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic?
The first thing is to continue applying public health measures. And we must also continue to support the development of more effective treatments and diagnostic tests. Vaccines, treatments, diagnostic tests and public health measures are the tools we have against this virus. And we must not lose sight of the fact that it will be a long time before everyone is vaccinated.
Therefore, it will be necessary to maintain some of the public health measures for longer than ideally we all wish. And a very small point, but very important, is that people who get vaccinated must maintain those measures for at least two weeks, because it can take a while for immunity to activate. Many may believe that the vaccine starts to take effect as soon as it enters the body, but it actually takes a little time.
Now, currently the global effort around vaccines, treatments and diagnostics you don’t have enough funds and you are still struggling to get the investments you need. So it is very important that governments invest in that global effort. There are huge economic costs every day for the pandemic. And that investment, when compared to the losses we are incurring, is quite small and can make a huge difference.
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