Moderna revealed that a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine will be needed

People vaccinated with two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from the American laboratory Moderna will need a third dose. This was stated in an interview posted this Sunday by Sunday Newspaper the CEO of the company, the French Stéphane Bancel, who says that a third booster dose should be administered to people already vaccinated, starting “from the end of the (European) summer” with the groups at risk to which they were vaccinated at the start of the year, and in particular with people living in residences.

Bancel warned that “two or three months of delay would result in numerous hospitalizations and deaths” and added that “All adults, even young people” should receive a booster dose “to protect fragile unvaccinated people” in the name of the precautionary principle.

Although he considers Moderna’s vaccine to provide immunity for a period of one to three years, “the arrival of variants increases the level of threat.”

On the other hand, he said, the laboratory will submit an authorization request to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in early June so that its vaccine can be used in adolescents between 12 and 17 years old.

It thus justifies the rapid opening of vaccination for this age group to protect themselves by collective immunity against the risk of a possible new epidemic wave. According to him, “the ideal” would be to protect these adolescents “before the end of August.

“If it is not massively vaccinated, the risk of a fourth wave cannot be excluded,” he said.

Moderna’s CEO claimed his company could produce 3,000 million doses per year, which, along with the 4,000 million that Pfizer-BioNTech plans to manufacture, would provide enough doses to vaccinate everyone on Earth with a single dose.

So far, 90 million people worldwide have received both doses of Moderna.

The CEO reiterated his criticism of the European Union for its “lack of anticipation” in the first months of the pandemic to work with laboratories on vaccines. He declared that he had put pressure on the European Commission – without success – to make progress and thus be able to quickly launch production on the Old Continent, as happened in the United States, whose administration had been mobilized since the spring 2020, but not with Brussels, it was carried out until the contract was signed in November.

A few weeks ago, the co-founder of the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, Ugur Sahin, confirmed what the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla: Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine will also need a third dose.

Sahin explained that the vaccine peaks (97%) seven days after second dose inoculation Yes begins to lose it after six months. “Protection slowly declines over time. We have data that indicates at six months the protection is no longer 95%, but 91%, and at eight months, we see that the antibodies which produce protection decrease markedly. For it we need a third dose to bring the protection back to almost 100%“.

So the third injection it will be inoculated nine or twelve months after the second.

The scientist predicted that the vaccine will remain like that of the flu: “Probably, every year, or maybe every 18 months”, a new injection will be necessary.

With information from EFE

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