The US federal government is scrambling to increase the limited supply of vaccines against covid-19. A new suggestion distributing half doses of the Moderna vaccine to some people, but meIt is not yet clear whether Moderna or health institutions such as the Food and Drug Administration would be on board for the idea, nor whether the strategy is scientifically sound.
The idea was announced by Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser of the government’s Operation Warp Speed program, on Sunday morning during an interview in the CBS program “Face the Nation”. According to Slaoui, the half-dose plan is the best option to extend the vaccine supply. Another similar idea suggests that people should only give the first dose of Moderna or Pfizer’s vaccine, approved according to a two-dose schedule, given with the shots a month apart.
‘We know that for the Moderna vaccine, half the dose to people between the ages of 18 and 55 is two doses, half the dose, which means that we achieve exactly the goal of immunizing twice the number of people with the doses we have, ”Slaoui said on Sunday.
Slaoui, an expert microbiologist and former chief vaccine researcher at GlaxoSmithKline, undoubtedly refers to a subset of data from early clinical trials with the Moderna vaccine. Some people between the ages of 18 and 55 get two 50-milligram doses of the vaccine, as opposed to 100 milligrams – the current amount per dose. These people appear to have a similar immune response to the coronavirus as the two 100-milligram doses. Some animal research has also suggested the same pattern.
While many outside experts do not discharge the idea straight, there is worries about the viability of the plan. For one, the data is very limited. Of the more than 15,000 volunteers who received the Moderna vaccine in clinical trials, only 200 received the smaller doses. This means that the evidence showing that the vaccine is very effective (approximately 95%) in preventing covid-19 diseases is based almost entirely on the 100-dose milligram. Although both groups appear to have similar immune responses on paper, scientists are still unsure of how these responses can translate into protecting people from disease.
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Perhaps the biggest obstacle in the plan is that it can not really solve us current problem. There is indeed a limited supply of vaccine doses available, but the doses we have do not reach people in the first place. Only about 4 million Americans is thought to have receive the vaccine starts in January, well below the forecast of 40 million doses that would be available by the end of last year. Both big cities and small towns is delayed in vaccinating as many people as possible, while the doses are almost it expires in some cases. Equally worrying are the stories of many people – including health workers– refuses to take the vaccine at all. As much as half the country hesitantly expressed to be vaccinated, according to recent surveys.
We can finally overcome these obstacles, and there are already reports of eligible people are rejected in some areas of vaccination. So any plan to make more out of the doses we have is likely to be seriously considered. Neither Moderna nor the FDA has responded to a request for comment from Gizmodo regarding the proposal.