AstraZeneca vaccine, the doubts of some Australian scientists

The AstraZeneca vaccine will be in our hands in mid-February. At least, in all likelihood. This is because EMA, the European Medicines Agency, should authorize its marketing in the European Union at the meeting of 29 January of the committee dedicated to medicinal products for human use. Only to Italy should they arrive several million doses in the first quarter, giving a strong acceleration to the vaccination campaign, currently hanging on to the slowdowns (and not exactly clear maneuvers) of the American giant Pfizer.

Yet, as happens in the United States, among other things, if some countries have already authorized the preparation developed with the University of Oxford (above all the Great Britain but also India) elsewhere scientists seem more uncertain. That’s what’s happening in Australia, where some experts are convinced that that vaccine would not be effective enough to lead the population towards the so-called herd immunity. And putting it on standby for the moment even if, in hindsight, the vaccination campaign in Australia it hasn’t started yet and will start only in February. The point is, the country has booked and purchased 53 million doses of that vaccine, and that would hugely slow the path to exit from the health emergency.

“The question is whether it is truly capable of providing herd immunity,” he said Stephen Turner, president of the Australian and New Zealand Immunology Society – we are playing a very long game and we do not know how long it will last ». Turner also added that the Scott Morrison-led government would be better off purchase multiple doses of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, the effectiveness of which – in the double full dose posology – is superior to that of AstraZeneca: About 95% versus 62% of the second (which, however, as we know with a different dosage, half a dose and a booster from a dose that has not yet been submitted to the approval of the authorities, would rise to 90%). In fact Turner – who had added to the Sydney Morning Herald how that vaccine was not going to be the one he would be distributing on a large scale – was somehow denied from his own company of experts, who explained how he spoke independently and how the body did not at all request the suspension of distribution in the country.

Australia bought 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine although neither the US product developed with the German company BioNTech nor the AstraZeneca have received approval from the TGA, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the body that deals with drugs and treatments in the country. The concerns of the experts were somehow addressed by Paul Kelly, the country’s chief medical officer with a very long experience, who explained how AstraZeneca’s vaccine is “effective”, “safe” and of “high quality”. According to the epidemiolgo, in short, there is no need to worry. Not only that: that vaccine can also be produced in Australia and will be available immediately, as soon as Tga “gives its approval, expected in February”. At the moment in the country there are 28,600 cases and 909 deaths from Covid-19, a decidedly more rosy situation than in many countries of the world which gives the authorities the peace of mind of evaluating vaccine candidates with a few more weeks or even waiting for even more effective ones.