2023-07-13 01:18:18
Moderna and Pfizer have taken steps with Health Canada to approve a new vaccine once morest COVID-19, which will target XBB.1.5, a subvariant of Omicron now predominant in Quebec. The pharmaceutical companies want to distribute their product this fall, but say they are unable, for the moment, to provide an exact date.
Moderna says it “initiated the presentation” of its vaccine on June 29 with Health Canada. It has already submitted an application for authorization to the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “Pending approval [de Santé Canada]we will be ready to supply our Spikevax® XBB.1.5 monovalent vaccine in time for the fall,” says Moderna Canada President and CEO Patricia Gauthier.
Pfizer and BioNTech have also submitted an application to the FDA and Health Canada for their monovalent XBB.1.5 vaccine for the 2023-2024 fall-winter season. “At this time, we cannot confirm exactly when the vaccine will be available in Canada, but we will update Canadians as more information becomes available,” Pfizer Canada wrote in an email.
Omicron XBB subvariants accounted for 86% of infections in Quebec between June 25 and July 1, according to the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec. XBB.1.5 alone caused 34.6% of cases.
These sub-variants cause the same symptoms as the others that circulated before: great fatigue, myalgia, fever, cough, sore throat, etc. “They have mutated enough that our immunity, due to vaccination or infection, no longer recognizes them,” said Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, president of the Quebec Immunization Committee (CIQ), in an interview with Le Devoir.
The doctor invites Quebecers at risk to “not rush in August” to obtain a booster dose since the new vaccine will not yet be offered in Canada. “If it’s been 6 months since you had your last vaccination, wait for the arrival of the modified vaccine,” she advises.
A booster dose for all, says NACI
In an advisory issued Tuesday, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended that all Canadians obtain a dose of the new formulation of the COVID-19 vaccine “if at least six months have passed since the last dose of COVID-19 vaccine or since known SARS-CoV-2 infection”.
Dr. Quach-Thanh believes for her part that “the dose can be offered to everyone because it is safe, but that we will really have to, as with influenza, focus our efforts to reach and make available the booster dose for people who are in the groups that we have identified as priority and most vulnerable”.
The committee she chairs transmitted verbally to Quebec its recommendations on vaccination once morest COVID-19 in the fall. Dr. Quach-Thanh is careful not to reveal them before their official publication, but indicates that “the vision of the CIQ has always been aimed, in the case of COVID and influenza, to prevent serious infections, including complications and deaths” in populations most at risk.
Among the groups usually targeted are the elderly, people aged 5 and over who are immunosuppressed, on dialysis or have “underlying medical conditions”, as well as health care workers “who can be a transmission belt to their clientele. more vulnerable,” she recalls.
Last spring, the CIQ recommended a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine “for high-risk individuals who have not yet been infected and whose last dose was at least 6 months ago”.
Many older people fall into this category. “The elders have been extremely careful over time and there are quite a few in there who have never caught an infection,” observes Dr. Quach-Thanh. You really have to make every effort to protect them. »
She believes that a simultaneous vaccination campaign once morest COVID-19 and the flu might be wise this fall. Seniors would only have to move once. “There is no evidence of a decrease in efficacy when the two vaccines are administered at the same time,” she underlines.
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