The Oxford-AstraZeneca team has to tear their hair out after another week of hair over a possible link between the vaccine and rare blood clots.
In March, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it had found no link between the vaccine and an ‘overall risk’ of blood clots. However, the agency could not completely rule it out and asked governments to ‘raise awareness’ about blood clots and include information about them for health workers and people being vaccinated. Later, the agency said these rare blood clots should be listed as possible “rare side effects” of the vaccine.
Since then, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has taken precautionary measures and advised anyone with potential blood clot symptoms four days or more after receiving the vaccine to seek urgent medical advice while investigating. after allegations of a connection with the vaccine further. On April 7, it said: “It is preferable that people under the age of 30 be offered an alternative vaccine without any underlying health conditions, if possible as soon as they are eligible.” This is because the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks for those in older age groups, but the balancing act becomes more difficult for those who are statistically less likely to be absorbed by COVID-19. The agency was careful to point out that there is still no conclusive evidence that the vaccine could cause blood clots, but that the links are becoming “firmer”.
The statement added: ‘Public Health England (PHE) analysis indicates that by the end of February, the COVID-19 vaccination program could have prevented 6,100 deaths in those aged 70 and over in England. All safety reports are carefully examined and anyone with unexpected symptoms should talk to a health care professional. All medicines have a risk of side effects. ‘
The MHRA says symptoms of a blood clot will depend on the location of the blood clot:
A lump in the lungs: shortness of breath, chest pain.
A clot in the abdomen: abdominal pain and / or swelling.
A clot in the blood vessels in the brain: headache (starting four days after vaccination), disturbed vision, confusion or seizures.
A lump in the bone: swelling and / or redness in the bone.
The agency also advises anyone with an unexplained skin rash or bruises outside the injection site to speak to a health care professional.
Although this may worry some people, it is important to note that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and effective for the vast majority of people, and that the risk of getting blood clots due to a coronavirus infection is much higher. as the risk of getting it through the vaccine. .
The MHRA, the World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency have concluded that the balance is very much in favor
vaccination.
[Illustration by Jawahir Al-Naimi/Al Jazeera]Progress report: Pfizer vaccines may be available soon for children aged 12 to 15
On Friday, April 9, Pfizer BioNtech applied to the Food and Drug Administration in the US for approval for the emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12 to 15 years.
Pfizer said it plans to seek similar rulings by other regulators worldwide in the coming days. The statement comes after phase three trials the company conducted on 12- to 15-year-olds, which they said showed 100 percent efficiency and a strong antibody response. It added that although all participants would be watching for long-term side effects, the vaccine was generally well tolerated and that the side effects were on the same scale as those of 16 to 25.
The Pfizer vaccine uses mRNA technology to initiate an immune response that is shown to protect those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 symptoms. Once injected, the mRNA instructs human cells to begin making proteins similar to the vein protein found on the outer surface of the coronavirus. These proteins are recognized as ‘foreign’ by the host’s immune system, which then makes an attack that destroys the ear proteins and all the cells they contain.
Prolonged immune cells then patrol the body. If the vaccinated person acquires the correct coronavirus, these patrol cells will immediately recognize the vein protein on the surface of the virus as ‘foreign’ and invade a faster immune attack on the virus and any cells that manage it before the person becomes. sick with the disease.
There are many experts who say that to get this pandemic under control, we must strive for a “zero-COVID strategy”, and vaccinating children in an effort to stop its spread is part of it.
However, it is not as simple as vaccinating children against diseases such as measles or polio, which we know can make them extremely ill. When assessing the use of the vaccine in young people, the risk of side effects is extremely important. It is very unlikely that healthy young people will get sick from COVID-19 – many have no symptoms. However, they can play a role in transmitting the virus to other people, and this is where the difficult decision has to be made to vaccinate a group of the population to protect others.
There are, of course, concerns that young people with underlying health conditions, especially those with a disorder in the immune system, can be very ill, and the approval of the vaccine for these young people seems much more beneficial. The fact that the vaccine is generally well tolerated will help the FDA and other regulatory bodies make an informed decision.
[Illustration by Jawahir Al-Naimi/Al Jazeera]And now, good news: New Zealand a year later
Most countries look to New Zealand and its leader, Jacinda Ardern, with mixed feelings of hope and envy. The country, with a population of 4.9 million, has recorded just 26 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic just over a year ago.
It has been found that almost every positive case has been imported from abroad in the last six months. Whenever a positive case is found in New Zealand, the country vigorously investigates and local closure measures are put in place. On February 14, 2021, when three cases of transfer by the community in Auckland were discovered, shops were closed, non-local travel banned and socialization confined to domestic bubbles.
New Zealand is not currently concerned about the transfer of communities and is focusing all its efforts on border control in its ongoing effort to keep COVID affairs at zero. New Zealand has one of the strictest border controls in the world, anyone entering the country must be quarantined in a hotel for 14 days.
This is in stark contrast to countries such as the UK, which has seen devastating numbers of deaths due to COVID-19 and until recently has not been able to secure its borders. Instead, the UK now puts all its eggs in one basket: vaccination.
With most of the world unvaccinated, there remains a clear and current danger that new variants will be imported from abroad or as numbers decline, and people unknowingly bringing back variants of foreign holidays. Unlike New Zealand, which acted quickly and decisively to eliminate COVID and where residents can now enjoy an almost normal life, although within the confines of their own borders, many countries had no choice but to switch to COVID. reduce numbers to “acceptable. Levels and live with the risk of seasonal increases in cases, hospital admissions and even deaths.
There will always be the argument that New Zealand is a small island nation and that it was relatively easy to control its borders and eliminate the virus, but as someone living on a small island – albeit with a much larger population – I can say with some confidence that we can all learn lessons from Jacinda Ardern and New Zealand.
On the vaccination bus: take vaccines from the clinic, to the community
Much has been said about the lower level of vaccine uptake in people with minority backgrounds in Western countries, and much has been done to improve vaccine uptake in these groups. I talked about the barriers that people from these communities face when they access health care and in turn regain their confidence in the vaccine. The reasons are versatile and complicated.
One way to show that health professionals take their health seriously and want to protect against COVID-19 is to take the vaccine from clinics and directly to the community.
This approach has been effective in the past when clinicians went to mosques, gurdwaras and temples to vaccinate people. Supported by religious leaders, confidence in the vaccine has been boosted.
But not all people from minority backgrounds visit places of worship and there is a danger that a certain group of this ‘hard to reach’ population will be missed. Some parts of the UK use a “COVID vaccination bus” in areas where the vaccine was used lower in the first phase of vaccination.
When we did this in my area in the north of England, it was not only people from minorities who wanted to help the bus, but also people from poorer areas who reduced the intake of the vaccine.
Our bus was armed with hundreds of doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which can be transported much more easily than the doses of Pfizer due to refrigeration. Together with a willing group of clinicians, we drove to communities with lower vaccine admissions.
We had a fantastic response; people were curious why a vaccine bus was parked in their street and came out of their homes to ask questions. Anyone over 50 or in a high-risk group was offered the vaccine and many people accepted the offer. For those without a car or money for public transportation, it can be difficult to get to a vaccination center, so it was a great advantage to have the bus come to them. People who were vaccinated were given the opportunity to ask questions and we were able to clear up some of the vaccine myths and misinformation that was circulating.
I have previously vaccinated people in mosques and thoroughly enjoyed the experience; it was the same with the graft bus. If we want to engage with these communities and protect them from a virus that excessively affects people from poorer backgrounds and those from minority groups, we need to meet them on their terms, and that’s one way to do it.
Reader’s question: When will it be safe to stop wearing masks?
It has been a long year of restrictions, and because many countries are accelerating their vaccination programs, many people are asking when they can meet family and friends without masks.
This is troublesome; we know the vaccines protect against COVID symptoms and we know that it will probably help reduce the transmission of the virus, but we do not yet have conclusive evidence of this. Furthermore, there are still large sections of the population that have not been vaccinated, so wearing masks in many indoor areas is still mandatory.
In a poll conducted by New Scientist among leading experts in the UK, it was found that the majority of them believe that wearing the mask is likely to continue until at least 2022. And even after countries stopped wearing masks, it is thought that many people will choose to continue wearing them in crowded spaces.
We saw this happen in the Far East after the outbreak of the SARS, where populations still wore masks – something that may have contributed to a lower number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the early stages of the pandemic when other Western countries were still with the idea of wearing face masks.
I expect it will not make me popular among readers here, but I think wearing masks to some extent in certain situations will be possible here to stay at least next year.