Of the one million people who received the Pfizer vaccine against covid-19 in the US, only 6 have suffered allergic reactions, 1 small but higher than what usually happens with other vaccines, said yesterday Moncef Slaoui, chief scientist of Operation Warp Speed.
“I don’t have an update today, but the latest data is that there have been six allergic reactions in a million vaccinated,” Slaoui told a news conference, recalling that future updates will be incorporated into many more. vaccinated, as there are delays of several days in the count.
Slaoui acknowledged that “this frequency (of allergic reactions) is higher than one might expect from other vaccines” and that in the case of the Moderna vaccine, which he has been administering for only a few days, there is no there have been reports of anaphylactic shock.
U.S. authorities are in contact with the pharmaceutical companies participating in the vaccine development program and are considering conducting clinical trials with volunteers predisposed to allergic attacks.
General Gustave Perna, head of Operation Warp Speed to get vaccines against covid-19 in record time, has detailed that to date a little over 15 million doses of the two vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and assured that by the end of the year, there will be five million more.
Still, Slaoui acknowledged that the injections “are being slower than we expected,” although production and distribution are broadly meeting the set forecasts.
U.S. authorities expect to increase by about a thousand the vaccination centers available for priority members, such as health workers or the elderly, starting next week.
The fact that Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are designed to be administered in two doses complicates the inoculation process, which requires reserving some doses, maintaining traceability and communication between federal authorities, states, hospitals and vaccinated personnel. .
Officials at Operation Warp Speed, which has earmarked billions of dollars to speed up vaccination against covid-19, hope to vaccinate 100 million people by the end of March, with the help of pharmacies and others. centers facing the public to facilitate the arrival of the general population.
The second dose of those who started receiving the Pfizer vaccine on December 14 will start being administered starting next week, so there will already be people who have completed the immunization process that is effective. in 95% of cases, according to clinical trials.
As for the possibility that coronavirus strains detected in the UK and South Africa will complicate this pandemic control process, Slaoui said that for now the data “only suggest that the new strains are more infectious” and that there is no definitive data in this regard.