Marc Van Ranst — © BELGA
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Marc Van Ranst is not dissatisfied with the reduction in the waiting time for the booster shot with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines from six to four months. “If we want to make the first two shots – which many people have already received – profitable, then the third shot is indeed necessary,” it sounded in ‘De Afspraak’. “Then the decreased effectiveness goes back to 75 to 80 percent.”
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jvhSource: The appointment
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Why was that waiting period ever set at six months? “That’s a bit arbitrary,” Van Ranst admits. “You want to give the immune system time to mature, as it is called. But if you see in practice that that protection is declining too quickly, you have to review that.”
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In the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the waiting time for a booster shot with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is even shortened to three months. Why then does Belgium opt for four months? “Ah, in practice, the difference is not very big after all,” Van Ranst says, hushed. You can’t vaccinate everyone at once. If you can satisfy a few doubters that way, four months is an honorable compromise. Do we not give the impression that people are actually not protected in that period between the fourth and sixth month? That is of course not the case. The protection rate curve does not go down in a straight line after four months.”
New wave, new shot?
Will the third shot now protect us from a new wave of infections? “We are starting to see more and more clarity in this: if we want to have those first two shots – which many people already received – reason, then the third shot is indeed necessary. Then the decreased effectiveness goes back to 75 to 80 percent.”
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The third shot will probably not be the last shot, Van Ranst warns. “The vaccines that are adapted to the newer variants are gradually coming. Do we need a separate vaccine for each variant? If you want the ideal protection, yes. But that is practically not feasible. There is also crotch protection, so you don’t have to go that far in fact.”
Omikron
In the meantime, the omikron variant threatens to become dominant in the short term. Do we already have clarity about all the consequences of that variant? According to Van Ranst, this is not yet complete. “Even the first described cases in South Africa have not yet completed the full time trajectory. It was mainly about young people there, much more than here. Moreover, many more people there had already been infected with the virus. So it takes a while before you get a decent view of such a new variant. Now that the omikron variant is also becoming dominant in the United Kingdom and Denmark, we will hopefully get more clarity about this soon.”
Wouldn’t it be better to wait for a vaccine specially adapted for the omikron variant? “No, because then you would now experience a big wave, while the protection is not optimal and we do have vaccines.”
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