The vice president of the Brazilian Society of Immunizations (SBIm), Isabella Ballalai, told the CNN this Wednesday (8) that it is essential to vaccinate to avoid the risk of new variants of the new coronavirus. In the assessment of the doctor, “it is already a consensus that we are going to need more and more doses”, that is, a periodic vaccination booster.
“The key to not having this risk of vaccines not working ‘because a new variant has emerged’ is to vaccinate. That’s what the population needs to understand. We still don’t have 90% of the population with two doses properly vaccinated. We started the booster dose, but we need to evolve quickly, because Ômicron has the possibility to grow in Brazil”, he said.
“What gives rise to a new variant is the circulation of the virus. The virus invades our cells, multiplies and it is there that it will transform a variant. Having people protected from them is what lessens the chances of surprises.”
In an interview with CNN, the pediatrician, who is also a pediatrician, said the result of a study released on Wednesday (8) which concluded that the booster dose of Coronavac increases by about 20 times the level of antibodies capable of fighting Covid-19 for all strains of the virus, including the Ômicron variant, is “great news.”
“This is excellent news. The results indicate that Coronavac with a booster dose has an increase in protection, as it is a vaccine with the inactivated virus, it is very important”, he said. “We need it to be submitted to Anvisa to assess the results”.
According to the doctor, researchers need more time to understand how the vaccine reacts to the virus’s mutations.
“At the beginning of Covid-19, we didn’t know [como se comportar], and time was very important. Science is fast, but it needs minimally time for answers that we want so much”, he affirmed.
Coronavac vs. Ômicron
The booster dose of the Coronavac vaccine against Covid-19 increases by about 20 times the level of neutralizing antibodies, which are those capable of fighting infection by all strains of the new coronavirus, including the Ômicron variant.
The information was given this Wednesday (8) by scientist Xiangxi Wang, a researcher at the Laboratory of Infection and Immunity at the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, during a symposium promoted by the Butantan Institute in partnership with the pharmaceutical company Sinovac.
Several scientific studies have shown that six months after the second dose of the different Covid-19 vaccines, the production of this type of antibody drops. Therefore, laboratories indicated the need for a booster dose as a mechanism to increase protection against severe cases of the disease.
According to the researcher, mutations present in the Spike protein — used by the virus to invade human cells, can promote resistance to vaccines. “A plausible alternative to resolve this issue is to administer the third dose of vaccine between six and 12 months after the second dose, to improve and extend protection,” said the researcher in a statement.
According to Wang, analyzes carried out in the laboratory with the plasma of individuals who received the third dose of Coronavac proved that the immunizing agent is capable of recovering the production of neutralizing antibodies.
The recorded increases in antibody levels were 17-fold against the Delta variant and the original (Wuhan’s) coronavirus strain, 18-fold against the Alpha variant, 19-fold against the Beta strain, and 14-fold against the variant Gamma.
According to the researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the neutralizing antibody titration was maintained after six months after the application of the booster dose.
Reference: CNN Brasil
