Covid, Mantovani to young people: “Here’s why you should be vaccinated”

“Get vaccinated. Also to return to school safely ”: this is the advice and priority that the immunologist Alberto Mantovani highlights in an interview with Corriere della Sera. According to the scientific director of the Humanitas Clinical Institute and Professor Emeritus of Humanitas University in Milan, it is true that children between the ages of 12 and 18 get very little sick and rarely have severe forms. However, there are some ‘buts’. “In Italy, 28 fatal cases from Covid have been reported in this age group. But there is more. Andrea Biondi, at the San Gerardo Hospital in Monza, had four cases of adolescents, out of 60, who ended up in therapy It is not a good experience for them. Again: in some of these patients there has been the appearance of a new disease, a systemic multi-inflammation that affects the whole organism. Then there is the threat of long-Covid: disorders that affect those who have had the disease and that drag on over time: for example, memory disorders. This is demonstrated by a report, the first in the world, signed by the doctors of the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome “, recalls the expert.” The vaccine – according to Mantovani – is a seat belt, like in a car. But by itself it cannot protect us 100 percent if we go red. So, let’s not forget all the other precautions, including a mask. Even those who have already had it. Covid is poorly protected, especially among the indeed ani. A study, signed by Pfizer, conducted on about 44 thousand individuals between 12 and 90 years and published online (i.e. accessible to all), shows that, in elderly people, the disease gives protection from a new infection, only in 47% of cases . The suggestion is to vaccinate, at the moment, with a dose “. On the third dose, however, explains the immunologist,” we always refer to scientific data. We know, again thanks to Pfizer’s work, that six months after the administration of their vaccine, protection from infection decreases (i.e. a vaccine can be reinfected), but the ability of the vaccine to avoid hospitalizations and death. For now, there are no definite indications for the third dose. The problem concerns people who are frail, for example because they are affected by blood cancers, and who react poorly to vaccines. We will try to give concrete answers with a study, which is called Vax4Frail, supported by the Ministry of Health, and which sees us participate as the Humanitas Institute, with other partners such as the Tumor Institute of Milan and the Regina Elena of Rome. The results should arrive by the summer “. In the future, Mantovani continues,” vaccines must be brought to poor countries, otherwise the virus can circulate and produce new, perhaps more aggressive, variants. As for pharmacological therapies, “one of the first objectives of the research is to understand if there is a genetic predisposition to the disease and if there are markers that can identify a person at risk of developing severe forms. We, as the Humanitas Institute, contributed to a work published in Nature, coordinated by Andrea Ganna, who is trying to shed light on these aspects. At the moment, monoclonal antibodies are being tested against the spike protein (the one that allows the virus to enter cells, ed) for use in frail patients. But, according to a new study published on the Recovery platform, they could also work in the late stages. These are solutions that are being tested if the vaccine fails or does not work. They are two antibodies, the result of Italian research. One is a monoclonal, which sees all the variants of the virus, studied by Davide Corti (published in Nature); the other is an engineered ‘mini-antibody’, conceived by Rino Rappuoli. We await the results of the experiments “.