Covid, Moderna tests new vaccine against variants

Moderna tests an updated version of the vaccine for possible use against variants. And he reiterates that the covid vaccine is safe. “Updating an RNA vaccine is a simple operation, but what we use produces effective antibodies against Delta. So far we have not found it useful to modify it, except in the laboratory. We are also testing the updated vaccine, but we still prefer to use the original one. we would change if more problematic strains than the Delta emerge, “Paul Burton, chief of researchers at Moderna, said in an interview with ‘la Repubblica’, stating that” the vaccine is safe for adults and it will be safe for children as well. data on 150 million people and we do not see any danger. In adolescents some rare cases of myocarditis have been observed, concentrated in males between 18 and 24 years at the second dose, but they are mild and of short duration. “” We have not yet understood the link between vaccines and myocarditis – explains the Chief Medical Officer of the American biotech, graduated in cardiology in London – We have data on the safety of one and a half million children between 12 and 18-year-olds from Europe, Australia and Japan, where the vaccine is approved for this age group. We see that cases appear from the age of 15, especially in males, to reach a maximum between 18 and 24. We hypothesize that testosterone can play a role, and that for this reason children and girls are protected. Even studies on myocarditis in general, not related to vaccination, show an increase only from 14-15 years old ”. “We have not observed cases – he says about the experiments on children – but it is a small study, with less than 5 thousand participants between the ages of 5 and 11. Covid has infected 250 million people and caused 5 million deaths. Coronavirus infection causes 400 cases of myocarditis per million infected, as also shown by various Italian studies. An RNA vaccine slightly increases the risk compared to the normal incidence, the one that is independent of both Covid and the vaccine, bringing it to 20-30 cases per million. However, they were all mild cases, curable in a few days “. On RNA vaccines – Moderna and Pfizer – Burton continues, “we have safety data that now include 300 million doses and 150 million people worldwide, in addition to the laboratory research that preceded human tests. When you inject the RNA particles into the muscle, you see them degrade within minutes. In no way do they enter the nucleus of the cells, where the DNA is located, let alone have the possibility of altering it. We have a crystalline certainty of this. There are rare cases of myocarditis, but it is such a small risk compared to Covid that I would have no doubts. I have two grandchildren under 18 in Australia and I felt relieved when they got vaccinated with Moderna ”. As for the appropriateness of the third dose, the researcher explains that “the antibodies drop after 6-8 months. We do not know what happens to cellular memory, but the epidemiological curves in various countries of the world tell us that after this period of time, infections among the vaccinated increase. The third dose is a pragmatic choice, in the face of the approaching winter and a Delta variant so efficient in infecting. The third dose right now is a common sense choice. We recommended a halved dosage, 50 micrograms, and the European Medicines Agency accepted our recommendation. In the spring we will know if the antibodies have remained high or if we will continue to need calls ”.