When it comes down to it, when it’s time to roll up your sleeves to receive the jab, the Hipra vaccine against Covid-19 has fallen far short of achieving the health impact that the Government had anticipated. The delay of the European Union in approving the compound, almost a year on the exit ramp until receiving the green light, has condemned a drug that was born as one of the great scientific milestones in the history of Spain. Now some unknowns remain in the air: what will happen to the 3.2 million doses that the Ministry of Health acquired for 31 million euros and what future awaits this vaccine with the end of the pandemic.
The Government’s first objective, to use Hipra to immunize Spaniards in the new vaccination campaign, has not been successful because only a handful of them have been administered. The department of José Miñones has not published official data since the end of June, but some communities explain that they have punctured “less than ten” Hipra vials in the current vaccination campaign. In these cases, they have done it to “people who were contraindicated for messenger RNA vaccines or did not want to take compounds of that type,” according to the person responsible for vaccination of an autonomy.
The Ministry of Health has always believed in the Hipra vaccine and has tried to speed up the deadlines to be able to administer it as much as possible. Already in last autumn’s campaign it planned to use the compound, but the EMA’s delay in granting its approval made it unfeasible. In this year, another circumstance has occurred that has played against Hipra: the two main suppliers of the European Union, Pfizer and Moderna, have updated their drugs and have adapted them to the new variants of omicron, something relatively simple in the Messenger RNA, but more complex in vaccines that use other technologies.
Finally, the improvement in the health situation and the large number of doses available has ended the urgency of previous years. The new vaccination strategies, such as the one approved by the Public Health Commission in September, only contemplate the vaccination against covid of those over 60 years of age and the vulnerable population, which greatly reduces the need for compounds.
“European and North American regulators have recommended the use of vaccines adapted to Omicron, and that has left Hipra out,” says Jaime Jesús Pérez, president of the Spanish Association of Vaccinology, who regrets the EMA’s delay because “it is a very good that it works. Certainly, the formula has the recognition of experts and international organizations and the proof is that the World Health Organization just ten days ago approved its use throughout the world, a possible outlet for production, although this route is not available either. clear.
The Spanish vaccine against covid-19 seemed to touch the sky on July 19, 2022, when Hipra reported that it had developed an effective compound against the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The Girona laboratory used recombinant protein technology and its compound provided an advantage: it could be stored at the temperature of a refrigerator, between two and eight degrees, which made it easier to transport. At a time when the pandemic had not yet been considered over, the announcement was a wake-up call for Spanish science, so lacking in good news.
From those same days, the mechanism that the European Union had designed for the approval of vaccines against covid was launched. In August, the Commission announced that it had signed a joint purchase agreement with Hipra (in reality, a reserve of doses that did not obligate the acquisition) of up to 250 million vaccines and the EMA asked the laboratory for all the information before giving the approval. But what seemed like a quick process stalled, especially after the agency demanded additional results from the laboratory. When the vaccine was finally approved, the picture had changed.
This newspaper has tried, without success, to seek Hipra’s opinion. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health also did not answer the question of how many doses were sent to the communities and limited itself to stating that “in this campaign, the WHO recommendations have been followed and those vaccines adapted and approved by the EMA will be prioritized. emphasizing that all vaccines have been shown to be effective against severe disease.
2023-10-29 23:08:45
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