The government has already begun preparations to put the booster vaccine – ‘booster’ – against covid-19 once it is approved by federal authorities for the general population and, according to what was reported to THE SPOKESMAN, there could be a change in preparation and dosage, which makes it different from the third dose that immunocompromised people have been receiving for three weeks.
Iris Cardona, chief medical officer of the Department of Health, reported that this week they will have meetings with both federal and state officials to detail when and how the booster can be administered. His expectation is that the ‘booster’ will be authorized for the three vaccines administered on the Island: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, the only one of the three that is a single dose.
“(This week) there is scheduled a meeting of the vaccine committee of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to discuss the data and after that there will be a meeting of the advisory committee of vaccination practices of the CDC (Centers for the Control and Disease Prevention) and the recommendations will come from there ”, Cardona said.
“There are many things that the experts have to decide. There are the studies of Pfizer with the ‘booster’ and Moderna with the ‘booster’ and they have investigated different dosages. It may be that this ‘booster’ comes with a different dose and is a different preparation. All this is in the picture and it is what we are going to discuss ”, explained the official.
He stressed that the booster dose should be given eight months after the second dose of the vaccine is administered. As reported, the government’s plan is to begin the administration of the booster with the groups that were vaccinated last December: first responders and health personnel.
“If you put a ‘booster’, when do you put it on, who do you put it on first and what is the dose going to be? These are matters for the regulatory agencies. We have the task of implementing these recommendations, directing doctors, nurses, health facilities, directing to ensure that those who need the dose receive it, ”Cardona explained.
The vaccination expert added that the booster dose is intended to boost the immune response produced by the first doses.
“It’s like raising the memory of an answer that goes down over time. It is as if the immune system is forgetting and you are going to remind it ”, he pointed out.
Vaccination against covid-19 began on the island in December of last year with first responders and health personnel, which included police, nurses, doctors and other health workers. Teachers and older adults, bedridden people, and residents of long-term care homes were then inoculated.
“We vaccinated those first responders in arenas, which those lines formed. That had a reason for being and it was to streamline the process when there weren’t many providers and the pharmacies hadn’t entered. Now we have about 1,000 providers throughout the island. We have enough vaccines, “said Cardona.
The first to receive the reinforcement, he said, will be the groups that were first vaccinated on the island.
“Those are those who have already completed eight months of having been vaccinated with the second dose, more or less they meet them at the end of September and we would start there,” said the main health medical officer.
Given the number of vaccination centers on the Island —including pharmacies, medical offices, and the vaccination centers of Salud and the organization VOICES-, Cardona reported that they do not contemplate a plan to reopen centers where they can place vaccines in a massive way, as happened last year when they enabled coliseums and other spaces.
“We are preparing the distribution. We made a call to the providers who vaccinated initially and we have a meeting with the hospitals this week so that the exercise is done in the same way that it has been done until now. We have already met with the providers that attended the long-term care centers to see the capacity and make the process more agile, ”he said.
They continue with the third dose
Three weeks ago the government began administering the third dose of the covid-19 vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) to immunocompromised people, cancer patients and patients with other conditions, such as arthritis and HIV.
“When the CDC or the Department of Health talks about a third dose, they mean an extra dose for immunocompromised people. That’s what we’ve been doing for three weeks, ”Cardona explained. “For that third dose, the FDA gave Pfizer authorization. However, the CDC, seeing the data from Pfizer and that it behaves the same as Moderna, also gave the recommendation for Moderna ”, he explained.
Cardona said his expectation is that the third dose will have been administered to about 10,000 immunocompromised people.
The new doses of vaccine are controversial, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has advocated extending vaccination to other countries before offering additional doses in places where much of the population is already vaccinated.
Regarding the WHO request, Cardona pointed out that in Puerto Rico vaccines are supplied by the federal government and that the United States and other countries have sent vaccines to countries that do not have them. He stressed, however, that it is worth continuing to strengthen immunity in the population.
“If we want as a country, as a community, to come to control of this, and if you know that there are some populations that do not respond the same because they are immunocompromised, we must do it. It is correct to start vaccinating with these doses, even if the position of continuing to help other countries is not abandoned, “he said.
Neither the doses for immunocompromised people nor the booster for the general population will affect the vaccination process for those who have not yet received the first dose of the vaccine, Cardona said.
“There are going to be enough doses,” he said. “We have put the third dose, but we continue putting the first and second. There has been a dramatic increase, “he said.
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