UK to recommend Covid-19 booster doses for older, high-risk people

New data from the UK suggests that some vaccinated people, especially the elderly, experience a greater loss of protection over time against symptoms of covid-19 and serious illness than the general public. The results were good enough for the country’s vaccine experts recommend a booster blows for high risk groups, including all adults over 50.

UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) on Tuesday published their updated guidance on the issue of booster doses. Their verdict was based on a recent analysis of real-global case data conducted by Public Health England.

There was both good and bad news in the analysis. People aged 40 to 65 after the Pfizer / BioNTech or AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine seemed to have experienced only a modest reduction in their protection against symptomatic diseases after six months, for example (for Pfizer, it remained around 75%). But the decline was greater for those over 65, with the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine dropping from 80% shortly after the second dose to 55% after the second dose.mark of the month.

The same pattern has been found to be true for serious illnesses. The Pfizer vaccine remained very effective in preventing hospitalization at all ages (over 92%)but began to gradually decline by the six-mark of the month. Once age was taken into account, however, the decreasing effect was very small or even nonexistent for middle-aged people, considering Pfizer’s shot, but it was taller for over 65s and the largest for people over 80. The scan also looked at the underlying health condition and found that the drop in protection was much more pronounced for the less healthy elderly, with a 71% effectiveness against hospitalization for these people. For those who received AstraZeneca, the decreasing effect was generally greater, although there was a wide range of estimates of how much. it went down after six months.

There was no data available beyond three to four months for people under 40, who were not eligible until later for the vaccine this year. Likewise, Moderna’s vaccine was approved in the UK in January, but doses were not available until mid-April. So there is less long term dataa available for both groups, but protection in general appeared to remain high three to four months later for young people vaccinated as well as for those receiving Moderna.

“We observed a limited decrease in vaccine efficacy against hospitalizations and deaths more than 20 weeks after vaccination with [the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccine]”, The authors wrote in their article, now available as a preprint. “The decline was greatest in the elderly and those in a clinical risk group, suggesting that these people should be given priority for booster doses. “

The JCVI reiterated that vaccines continue to offer strong protection against serious illness and death. But to “maintain this high level of protection throughout the coming winter,” experts have advised that booster injections begin to be offered to those most at risk of serious illness as well as those who are most at risk of serious illness. groups that received the earliest vaccines. This will include residents of nursing homes, people over the age of 50, frontline health care and social workers, people living with immunocompromised people, and young people with health conditions that increase their risk of serious covid-19. And boosters will be recommended no later than six months after the second shot, preferably with a mRNA vaccine.

UK now joins nine other countries in recommending boosters for at least some residents, according to Financial Times reported Wednesday. This list includes the United States, although it is not clear how this the strategy will unfold. Previously, the White House had announced it would sanction the recalls for the first groups of vaccinated by September 20 then for every other eight months after the second dose. But some governments and outside scientists have asked if boosters for all are needed right now and instead pushed for a more gradual introduction, starting with those most vulnerable to serious illness.

The new UK data, as well as some US data, seems to suggest that declining immunity may be of greater concern for those at high risk and older than for the general population. But there are other wrinkles here, too much. Shortly after the vaccine rollout, the UK changed its dosage strategy, choice of space eight doses of vaccine at 12 weeks, while other countries stuck to threeone week interval, including the United States and Israel. And according to the JCVI, there is evidence that the longer wait time between doses may have allowed immunity to remain more robust in these UK residents than in those with a shorter vaccination schedule.

Other experts such as Anthony Fauci, the current chief medical adviser to President Biden, have at variance with recent reviews of the White House plan, arguing that data from Israel and elsewhere indicates a need for boosters at all levels as soon as possible. In Israel at least, there is already evidence that boosters have restored a substantial level of immunity against serious infections and diseases, at least temporarily.

All eyes will be on one see you this Friday of the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine Advisory Board, where outside experts will discuss the issue of recalls and all the data surrounding it. Although their recommendations are not binding, they are likely to influence the FDA and CDC the decisions on boosters.