The most probable scenario for when the coronavirus vaccinations will start is in February 2021 and will be completed in early summer, said to KYPE the Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the Medical School of the University of Cyprus Nikolas Dietis, noting that priority will be given to vaccination groups. population.
"According to the data we have, I estimate that vaccinations will start around February, but they will not be vaccinations for the general population," he said.
Dr. Dietis stated in his statements to KYPE that "to whom the vaccine will be given depends on two things: on what kind of approval the company will get from the European Medicines Agency, whether it will be for specific population needs or for use for the general population from the beginning ".
As he said, "it is necessary for each country to have its own priorities for vaccinations, its own planning".
What is circulating as the most likely scenario, he explained, is because the doses will not come all together, we will not be able to vaccinate the general population directly. "What I am likely to do is to vaccinate critical population groups, first the medical and nursing staff who guard the country's health system, the security forces, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. "Gradually, vaccinations will be given to the general population."
He explained that if vaccinations start with such a scenario, in February, for example, in the special groups, it depends on the speed, the doses of vaccines that will come, the speed that will be produced and the speed at which we will vaccinate our population for when the vaccination will be completed. general population - we will probably go until the beginning of Summer.
He noted that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have two doses each with a difference of 28 days for each person. "The right organization that each country will have plays a role, so that it is recorded when someone has made the vaccine with the date to make the second dose," he said.
Dr. Dietis stated that we will use three to four different vaccines for vaccinations. "Countries will go to the market to get all the vaccines from different companies so that they can make them available to as many people as possible. We must use the pros and cons of each vaccine. "The Pfizer vaccine is stored at a temperature of -70, so personal doctors will not be able to vaccinate and will have to be vaccinated by hospitals, while the Moderna vaccine used in the refrigerator can be vaccinated by personal doctors and health centers." he added.
When vaccinations will start, he continued, is based on two factors - the first factor is when the company will apply to the European Medicines Agency and be approved to start distribution. Another part is the mass production of vaccines because not all doses have been produced.
"Some millions of doses will be released to the US market at the end of 2020, and doses will be produced for Europe, which will be the beginning of the year and therefore the vaccines will be distributed in the countries around February, I estimate. It all depends on how many installments each company can produce and how these installments will be distributed. The information says that they will be distributed according to the population of each country. The installments will come gradually and we will be in this process as well ", he added.
Many vaccines in clinical trials
Dr. Dietis said that there are many vaccines, 80-70, that are in clinical trials.
He noted that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are US vaccines from major companies that have completed their phase 3 clinical trials.
In addition to the two phase 3 vaccines, there is the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as well as 12 others.
The EU also recently reached an agreement with CureVac, a German company whose vaccine is now in phase 3 studies.
"They have differences in terms of technology that everyone uses. The common goal is to produce antibodies against a virus but the way we get our body to produce these antibodies is different. "We can give him the attenuated virus, we can give the virus killed in a vaccine, our body can recognize it and produce antibodies," he said.
There are vaccines, he noted, that use other viruses such as AstraZeneca and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that use the biology of other viruses to activate our immune system to produce antibodies.
"The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use a brand new technology that has never been used before with MRNA technology. It is a technology that is much faster to produce and create. These vaccines do not use any viruses, either live or weak, they simply use the genetic material of the virus and the body recognizes the proteins produced by this genetic material and makes antibodies against the virus. "It is encouraging that we have had significant efficiency," he said.
He expressed the hope that by the beginning of the new year we will have in our quiver different vaccines for use.
Asked about this, Dr. Dietis said that the European Union has made the agreement for the order of vaccines for Cyprus. "In the beginning, we made pre-agreements before the results came out so that we could be prepared. When a vaccine is approved and effective, then the order agreement will be signed. "We made such pre-agreements with Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, CureVac and AstraZeneca," he said.
There will be no delay, he added, as the results are positive given the need that exists, noting that we will wait to see the overall dossier that companies will submit.
"All we know about the results of vaccine studies are announcements, we do not have a scientifically published study with detailed data so that we as scientists can evaluate them. The company is not obliged to publish detailed data before submitting its file for approval because there are issues of competition and corporate protection ", concluded Dr. Dietis.
Source: KYPE