Gentlemen,
My spies in the UK tell me that when the booster jabs are rolled out (as I gather they soon will be) you will only have a choice between Pfizer and Moderna. What happened to the Oxford/Astrazenica option?? Can some kind soul enlighten me? TIA,
CD. --
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- The Communist Manifesto, Marx & Engels.
I think they decided it was less suitable as a booster
Indeed? I wonder why? ISTR they were suggesting a booster shot of something other than what you'd already had would offer the best protection. So Pfizer makes sense if everyone had the Oxford one first time around. However, plenty of people had their first and second doses of Pfizer, so one would think their best bet would be Oxford for a booster. So why aren't they being offered it? --
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I THINK it was more variant specific.
Someone has decided to make extra money, with kickbacks.
I expect it makes the logistics a bit simpler since they are targetting fist and second jabs at the younger cohorts now, and typically only recommend Pfizer or Moderna for them.
(there is also a good argument for boosting with different product when possible since it will increase the scope of the coverage, and the majority of us had the AZ first times round).
ISTR that while the AZ jab (that's what I've had) was good enough to give sufficient protection and was available in large enough quantities, but not as effective as Pfizer and Moderna. So Following AZ with Pfizer or Moderna, makes sense, but following either with AZ may not, as the resulting protection may not be as high.
With far more availability of Pfizer and Moderna now, the need for AZ will likely be low in the UK and Europe and it will be used mainly in India, Africa and the like, due having no need for extreme refrigeration.
But the UK probably already ordered and committed paying for the different vaccines 18 months ago. The majority of the early vaccinations were what was available in bulk at the time.
It is still the most given jab worldwide, but there are supply problems. The biggest manufacturer of the Oxford vaccine is the Serum Institute of India, who have stopped all exports until next year. All their production is going to India, to try to bring the pandemic under control there. The other plants are busy fulfilling the WHO orders for third world countries.
It's the same on the mainland as for the Isle of Man:
"Other than in the case where a contraindication to a mRNA vaccine is indicated, there will be no choice of vaccine provided".
A few months ago a study was published on switching vaccines between the
1st and 2nd doses.Astra followed by Pfizer gave an exceptionally good antibody response and, for some reason, was better than the other way around.
Anything based on adenovirus, has to have the adenovirus part changed when doing boosters.
On Sputnik, they knew they would be doing two doses from the start. Your second jab there, comes from a differently-labeled vial. If the Russians needed to do a third dose as a booster, then need another flavor of "Adxxx".
Russia's Sputnik V adenoviruses Ad26 and Ad5
Johnson & Johnson adv26
AstraZeneca ChAdOx1 (Modified chimpanzee adenovirus) (Now, you can decode those letters...)
You'd need to make a "ChAd0x2" to do a booster for AZ. That means it has to be engineered, lightly tested, volume manufactured, before you get it.
If you do two jabs of ChAdOx1, during the second jab, your immunity to ChAdOx1 as a vector, causes your body to throw the jab in the garbage, so to speak. A unique, never before seen modified thing has to be used, so it "comes as a surprise" during a second or Nth jab. You want the immune system to be "not up to speed on ChAd0x2", so the immune system sees lots of "fake virus spikes" while it is also analyzing and making antibodies to ChAd0x2. It's not swept out of the body immediately, and does some good.
You could probably do a second jab with ChAdOx1, if you were given a gallon of the stuff. I'm sure that would work :-)
The mRNA ones don't need this. Not that I've heard.
You can even mix the mRNA ones. I got a Pfizer and a Moderna. Which might even cause problems if I were to travel to certain foreign countries, who do not "recognize" that as a valid combo. Tough :-)
They've even mixed Adenovirus ones and mRNA ones. Quite a few mixtures have been tried. The easiest booster for such a person, would be any other mRNA one.
But no matter what, your public health system has to approve of the process, before you get it. If the evidence isn't there, no booster for you.
Paul
They found empirically that the mRNA based vaccines do work better for the third booster shot than the modified viral vector ones. It also makes a broader immune response since Pfizer & Moderna target slightly different aspects of the spike protein. Defence in depth is better.
The so called mix and match strategy. UK led the world in this research.
Only a small fraction of the over 50's got Pfizer although a lot of medics did in the early phase. They may well be offered Moderna.
Pfizer had an impressive response against the original and alpha variants of 90+% protection against symptoms. It is much less impressive now against Delta ~60% - particularly in Israel where they used exclusively the Pfizer vaccine early on and on an age first basis.
I suspect a part of the reason why Pfizer and Moderna are being preferred here is because US firms have better marketing departments and lobbyists causing politicians to make decisions in their favour.
Only AZ Oxford are selling their vaccine at essentially cost price.
It is debatable whether the third shot is really worth it in healthy individuals with fully functioning immune systems. Scientists are divided on whether or not the first world doing boosters will prolong the pandemic by allowing new variants to arise in the largely unvaccinated third world.
Thanks for that link.
I'll also take by booster when offered it.
I was wondering that as well, as I have had that one and am fine. There was some talk about it being rejigged for the new strains some months ago, so it could be that is the reason and governments do not want to wait. Also maybe they want it to not have any blood clotting issues for some patients, but I understood this has already been tackled so an authorities answer would be good. Brian
I am down to have the booster on Oct 2.
The first two were Pfizer.
I don't care which brand is.
Let's be honest three heads are better than two.
On 26/09/2021 21:08, pinnerite wrote: ....
You are Cerberus AICMFP
:-)
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