Dr. Elmer Huerta announced that worldwide it will be necessary to be vaccinated against the coronavirus once a year. This according to the meeting held by COVID-19 advisers and public health authorities, at the White House, in the United States, last Tuesday.
“The next (vaccine) is the bivalent one that has been approved. It will bring two types of virus, the original from Wuhan and the Omicron variant, therefore, it will provide double protection. Yesterday, more or less, the mystery of the question of how often one goes to be vaccinated has been unveiled a bit.”, indicated in RPP News.
He added that according to the doctor who leads the White House COVID-19 response team, what the government is planning right now, is that this bivalent vaccine is only once a year. This COVID-19 response team is made up of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
“This bivalent vaccine will be made available to the public this week in the United States. and the Pfizer vaccine is being authorized for people over 12 years of age and the Moderna vaccine for people over 18, and it will be once a year”he pointed.
Huerta commented that, apparently, something very similar is going to happen in the future with the application of flu and influenza vaccines, which are administered once a year when winter begins, a time when there are more infections of these diseases.
“The flu vaccine is made differently every year. No two flu vaccines are the same because they change every year according to the strains of the virus that are circulating in the world. That is going to be the path – they said yesterday – that is going to be followed with COVID-19. There will be vaccination once a year in times of greatest contagion when people, like the flu, tend to be inside the house “he asserted.
At another time, he announced that according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is an adviser to the White House on COVID-19 and director of the United States National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Allergy, “some people at very high risk may need to be vaccinated twice”. Although that is yet to be evaluated.
Will Minsa acquire bivalent vaccines?
Asked about whether the Ministry of Health (Minsa) will acquire the bivalent vaccines to implement them in the national vaccination scheme, Dr. Elmer Huerta responded as follows:
“The Minsa, I suppose, with the speed that characterizes them, must already be talking with Pfizer and Moderna to see when the doses of the bivalent vaccine can arrive in Peru. These vaccines that we are using are going to be obsolete, they are first generation. Second generation vaccines are already beginning to be distributed this week in the United States, therefore, the laboratory already has production capacity and the governments of the world must already be talking to have these batches in their country in the shortest time possible”, pointed out.
What are bivalent vaccines?
The bivalent vaccines licensed against COVID-19, or upgraded boosters, include an mRNA component from the parent strain to provide a broadly protective immune response against COVID-19 and an mRNA component in common between the Omicron BA.4 and Ómicron variant lineages. BA.5 to provide better protection.