Pfizer, Burioni: “Two vaccine doses effective against variants, one no”

“With two doses” of Pfizer / BioNTech’s anti-Covid vaccine “antibodies are induced that neutralize all variants of Sars-CoV-2”, while “with only one no. This could explain why the Brazilian and Indian variants are in the UK. circulating “. The virologist Roberto Burioni underlines this on the ‘MedicalFacts’ website he founded, summarizing and commenting on the data of “a work just released in ‘The Lancet'”. A “very important” study which, “even with some limitations, explains things of utmost importance”. “The sera of 250 patients were taken after the first dose and after the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine – summarizes the professor at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan – and it was evaluated how much the antibodies induced by vaccination (one or two doses) are able to neutralize the different viral variants “. Simplifying, “what emerges with great clarity is that a single dose of Pfizer vaccine induces a good amount of neutralizing antibodies against the ‘original’ virus in most vaccines. On the contrary, that single dose of vaccine does not induce such an effective response. against the variants, in particular the Brazilian and the Indian “. This, Burioni points out, “could explain what is happening in the UK: he is vaccinated with a single dose and this is allowing the circulation of variants against which the ‘once vaccinated’ is not immune, and therefore these (in particular if very contagious like the Indian one) are circulating “. (continues) The evidence for which “we can be optimistic”, Burioni remarks, is that “two doses of Pfizer vaccine induce high neutralizing titers against all variants. Obviously this work has limitations: the ability of the vaccinated serum is analyzed to neutralize viruses and, as important as it is, this is not the only thing that protects – specifies the scientist – But it is a remarkable idea, which reiterates that vaccinating with a single dose was not an idea without contraindications, as someone had already many months ago suggested “. The virologist’s final consideration is that,” as you see, the variant issue is extremely complex, and must be discussed not on Twitter or Facebook, but in scientific journals, where opinions are qualified.