No more vaccine "boosters"? Pfizer CEO: One "flu shot" a year is enough
In how many months will the pandemic be over? Pfizer CEO: “One shot a year” is a new trend
The Omicron epidemic is in full swing in various countries, and government agencies are generally calling on the public to receive a third dose of booster shot to obtain additional protection. Although the number of infections continues to hit new highs, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla asserted in an interview with the Israeli media , the world will return to a state close to normal “in a few months”, and said that the new coronavirus will not be completely eradicated and will “accompany mankind for several years to come.”
Reuters pointed out that major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, are developing special boosters for the Omicron variant virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also publicly called on the public to receive the third dose of the mRNA vaccine booster shot. However, Bourla believes that booster doses are not the “best solution” to the epidemic. Only once-a-year “flu shots” that target all mutant viruses will be an effective way to end the pandemic.
Bourla said that Omicron is different from all variants of the virus so far, which is more contagious and easier to cause “immune escape.” Therefore, a booster injection every 4 to 5 months may not be effective against new mutant strains; however, a vaccine dosage administered once a year can not only easily persuade people to get vaccinated, but also increase the proportion of regular vaccination. From a public health perspective, this is a more reasonable approach.
Can a ‘flu shot’ end the pandemic? Targeting the spike protein to improve cross-protection
Supporting a similar statement is Dr. Shruti Gohil, a medical expert from the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Gohil believes that in the short term people do need boosters to gain protection. The pandemic will end, but in order to enter the epidemic stage faster, the world urgently needs to develop new types of vaccines to resist mutant viruses and prevent the virus from causing large-scale diagnoses again.
Dr. Gohil believes that major pharmaceutical companies should start producing vaccines that generate an immune response against the “spike protein”, which is the main substance used by the virus to latch onto and infect cells. Once a vaccine is successfully developed, it can provide the human body with “cross-protection” against the intrusion of different types of mutant viruses into the body.
Dr. Sharon Nachman, director of the Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital in the United States, also believes that previous studies have shown that the effect of booster shots against individual mutant viruses begins to weaken after about 5-6 months, and the protection drops rapidly. If there is no fixed annual vaccine and just continuous vaccination, the number of severe cases may explode, which will overwhelm the medical capacity.
Dr. Nachman said that if COVID-19 becomes a permanent fixture in the human world like the flu, the cost to various countries will drop significantly. New types of “flu shots” must be further developed so that people can have a chance to truly return to normal life. By increasing global vaccine coverage to a certain level through an annual vaccine, the pandemic will end more quickly and regional infections will no longer be difficult to control.
“COVID-19 will continue to exist, but eventually it will become a manageable threat,” Dr. Nachman said.
source:
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