Text / Lin Yiyan Photo source: Photo by Qiu Jianying
The new generation vaccines have become the main trend of the new corona vaccination. Currently, Taiwan has quickly followed the United States and has approved two next-generation vaccines, BA.1 and BA.4 / 5. Experts have pointed out that no matter what generation vaccine it is, in the face of the current epidemic Variant strains are more effective than traditional vaccines and should be administered as soon as possible.
An office worker, Miss Zhong, who received three doses of the vaccine and was still diagnosed at the end of October, had a fever of 39 degrees at one point and what was even more difficult was a sore throat. .
She was most likely infected with a variant of Omicron, BA.5. The mutant strain has caused a wave of epidemics on the rise since late August: more than 2 million Taiwanese have been diagnosed in just two months, and 90% of confirmed cases were BA.5 infections.
Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief infectious disease expert, once warned that “BA.5 has an overwhelming transmission advantage over the previous variant of the virus.” According to the study, BA.5 spreads faster than the previous wave of BA.2 Therefore, in early September, the United States led the world in administering the BA.5 vaccine.
Because the Taiwan-approved next-generation Moderna vaccine simultaneously belongs to the BA.1 viral strain, it has sparked criticism: Zhao Shaokang, political figure and president of the China Broadcasting Corporation, has questioned that Taiwan “slows down the United States several times over.”
As early as mid-November, the BA.5 vaccine can be administered
Now the long-awaited new generation bivalent BA.4 / 5 vaccine (hereinafter referred to as BA.5 vaccine) has finally arrived. The Central Epidemic Command Center announced on the evening of October 26 that the approval of Moderna and BNT’s BA.5 vaccines have both obtained Taiwan’s Emergency Use Authorization Review (EUA).
Li Yizhen, general manager of Moderna Taiwan and Hong Kong, told World Magazine that Taiwan could be the first Asian country to administer the Moderna BA.5 vaccine: “I know several countries are being tested at the same time.” I didn’t hear. talk about no Asian country that has approved BA.5, “he said.
The command center said the first batch of Modena’s BA.5 vaccine will arrive in 600,000 doses in early November. After sealing and testing, “it will take at least two weeks before it can be put into use.” the audience can be beaten.
Zhuang Renxiang, spokesman for the command center, stressed that according to the contract signed between the command center and Modena, in addition to the 3 million doses of BA.1 vaccine that have been purchased, 7 million doses of the vaccine will be purchased by end of the year, mainly the BA.5 vaccine.
At present, the fourth dose vaccination rate in Taiwan is only 15% and there are more than 17 million people who can be vaccinated.These people would have to wait half a month and wait for the launch of the BA.5 vaccine before being vaccinated? Chen Jianwei, director of the Clinical Trial Center of National Taiwan University Hospital, believes there is not much difference between the two vaccines, because BA.1, BA.4 and BA.5 belong to the same Omicron variant. “This difference is a bit confusing.”
Why are there two new generation vaccines?
In fact, with the exception of the United States, the main new generation international vaccines use the BA.1 viral strain.
The emergence of the BA.5 vaccine is primarily a US government requirement. A senior biotech industry executive pointed out that when the next-generation vaccine was developed, the pharmaceutical company predicted that BA.1 would become a pandemic, so the BA.1 virus strain was used as a vaccine.
However, the predictions of the US Centers for Disease Control and pharmaceutical companies are different, that BA.5 will become the mainstream, so US pharmaceutical companies are required to develop vaccines for BA.5 and also to speed up the marketing process. of the vaccine, even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has rarely agreed to adopt some experimental animal data as EUA audit data for the new corona vaccine.
Li Yizhen confirmed, “FDA adopts human experimental data from BA.1, then adds animal experimental data from BA.5 and uses these two data to make professional judgments and approve BA.5 UAE.” . adopted the same information through the Taiwanese UAE.
Is BA.5 really better than BA.1?
In fact, current research has confirmed that the efficacy of the next-generation vaccine is better than that of the first-generation vaccine, but there are no research results comparing the efficacy of the BA.1 and BA.5 vaccines.
Li Bingying, convenor of the vaccination group of the Advisory Committee for the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said that in existing animal experiments the BA.5 vaccine has indeed been seen to have a neutralizing effect. relatively good on BA national protection. security may not be severely affected.
Furthermore, with the rapid mutation and infectivity of the novel coronavirus, the plan often fails to keep up with the changes. Wang Bisheng, command center commander, said: “Although the next purchases will mainly be BA.5 vaccines, the purchase of BA.1 vaccines is not excluded, because the currently popular XBB type in Southeast Asia will be closer. to the BA. .1 in evolution. Virus. “
He pointed out that the future trend of the outbreak is still difficult to estimate, so the BA.1 vaccine reserve is still very important. Li Yizhen also revealed that because he was busy with official business, he had not yet received the fourth dose and that his parents had been vaccinated with the BA.1 vaccine according to the schedule announced by the government.
Qiu Nanchang, president of the Taiwan Children’s Infectious Diseases Medical Association, pointed out that, according to current research, the BA.1 vaccine can also produce a good immune response to the BA.4 and BA.5 viruses, “The point is that not independently from which it is, compared to the Omicron mutation strains, the effect is better than the original vaccine. “
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※ For more interesting reports, please refer to the “World Magazine” website.
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