“While it is true that the virus still does not behave like an endemic seasonal respiratory virus, like other endemic coronaviruses, we expect vaccination campaigns to take place mainly once a year,” he said this Wednesday (15) at a press conference. , the head of Biological Threats Strategy for Health and Vaccines at European regulator Marco Cavaleri, quoted by news agency Efe.
According to the EMA (European Medicines Agency), the best time of year to administer the vaccine against covid-19 will be “the beginning of the cold season” (autumn), coinciding with the time for vaccine vaccination against other respiratory viruses (such as flu ).
For Marco Cavaleri, it would be reasonable to reflect on “the direction of the flu paradigm, without prejudice to the uncertainties” that remain about the behavior of SARS-CoV-2, given that “repeated vaccination” against covid-19 ” may not be accepted by the general population”.
In this sense, he insisted that “it will be better to consider scheduling the vaccine once a year” or “synchronizing it with that of other respiratory viruses.”
The EMA “will continue to monitor data in the coming months to determine the most appropriate criteria for the composition of vaccines” to be used against covid-19 in the future.
According to the European drug regulator, the epidemiological situation is “constantly improving” – with the number of new infections, hospitalizations and deaths falling – but Covid-19 “still poses a significant burden to the health systems of the European Union”, given the “low numbers administration of booster doses to vulnerable groups”, such as the elderly.
Covid-19 is a pandemic infectious respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, a type of virus that was discovered three years ago in China, has spread rapidly around the world and has taken on several variants and subvariants, some of which that are more contagious than others.
In Portugal, vaccination against covid-19 started on December 27, 2020 and since then primary doses and booster doses have been administered in phases.
Circulating COVID-19 vaccines essentially prevent serious illness and death.
Source: DN
