Health experts say instead of giving vaccinated people booster dose, world should focus on nations like Africa, Latin America where less than 1.5 per cent population has been vaccinated so far
A woman undergoes COVID-19 test at Dadar station. File pic
Why is there a hullabaloo for a COVID-19 vaccine booster even before results of its clinical trials are out?” ask health care experts amid the Omicron scare. They also expressed concern about starting booster shots when a huge part of the population, including children, have not been vaccinated yet.
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So far, 21 Omicron cases have been detected in India, including one each in Delhi and Jamnagar city of Gujarat, two in Karnataka’s capital Bengaluru, and eight in Maharashtra and nine in Rajasthan. The experts cautioned that too much exposure to vaccines also means compromising the body’s natural immune system, thereby causing probable adverse reactions leading to numerous autoimmune diseases.
“Omicron ‘blame game’ has been going on unabated over the past 10 days. The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) comprises 28 COVID-19 sequencing laboratories that monitor COVID variants to understand how they spread and evolve. It has the protocol to sequence 1:5 (20 per cent) specimens that test positive on RT-PCR...,” said Dr Subhash Hira, professor of Global Health at University of Washington-Seattle and one of the top pandemic-control experts.
The INSACOG has told the Centre that it may consider boosters for people aged 40 years and above, starting with the high-risk and high-exposure people “since low levels of neutralising antibodies from current vaccines are unlikely to be sufficient to neutralise Omicron, although risk of severe disease is still likely to be reduced.” It has also suggested immunisation of the unvaccinated at-risk population.
Immune diseases fear
“It seems that most of the world has readily recommended administration of booster dose of the current base vaccines without even waiting for results of clinical studies of the booster shot. Many scientists are concerned about booster dose because of the likely adverse reactions leading to autoimmune diseases, such as myocarditis, vasculitis, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroiditis, SLE, Psoriasis, diabetes, Guillain-Barre syndrome, etc,” said Dr Hira.
He added, “The world’s wealthiest countries, like the US and in Europe, have already approved booster shots for some age groups and immune-compromised people (HIV/AIDS, cancers, etc.). The world has ignored a scientific finding that alerts against vaccine apartheid in resource-limited countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, where less than 1.5 per cent of the adult population is vaccinated. The low-vaccine coverage areas, in these countries as well as the rich ones, are causing rapid replication of COVID and leading to emergence of new variants. This is where the entire world should focus its attention now... Mobilising global resources to deliver vaccines to nations like Africa, Asia and Latin America will provide efficient control of the pandemic and slow down the speedy occurrence of variants.”
Dr Hira added, “The world needs to balance its pandemic control strategies between the ‘first generation to nth generation’ vaccines and the innovation for pharma molecules that will cure Coronavirus. It is the pharma molecules that have been sidelined in the world’s excitement to develop a therapeutic vaccine that would cure Coronavirus.”
Dr Wiqar Shaikh, professor of Medicine, Grant Medical College and Sir JJ Group of Hospitals, said, “The cause for worry in the medical profession as well as in the governments around the world is that Omicron has over 50 mutations and could evade the immune system and vaccines. Despite all the uproar, Omicron cases have been reported to be mild, with no hospitalisations and no deaths. What is surprising is that there has been a demand from a certain section of scientists for a booster dose to bring Omicron under control.”
He cited an article from the journal, Nature, published on December 2, which said many global healthcare workers have opposed widespread booster campaigns more so because large swathes of the world population remain unvaccinated. Nature says the worry is that as wealthy countries rush to offer boosters and with the emergence of new variants like Omicron, it will further exacerbate the global vaccine imbalance; a disparity that could have contributed to the emergence and spread of Omicron.
Dr Shaikh also quoted an October 9 study in Lancet that analysed and summarised all available studies on COVID-19 vaccines. It concluded that the available data did not support widespread use of boosters. He said that there is a clamour worldwide for boosters to tackle Omicron even though there’s no scientific data to support that. He concluded that it is still early, and until we have more scientific evidence on Omicron, giving boosters may not be good scientific practice.
Strengthen COVID protocols
Dr Ketan Vagholkar, professor of surgery at DY Patil Medical College, “The detection of Omicron has led to a futile global confusion and panic... The overall severity of COVID-19 has reduced over time. The disease-producing capability of Omicron is still undetermined. The exact preventive role of existing vaccines against Omicron is contentious and debatable. We, therefore, need to completely vaccinate the entire population, and more so strongly enforce COVID-appropriate behaviour.
“Vulnerable populations should be fully vaccinated on war footing. By the time this is done, details of clinical disease from Omicron will be available, and a decision for boosters can be taken then. There is a high likelihood that Omicron may not be as serious as Delta,” Dr Vagholkar concluded.
“I feel that before taking a booster, we must check the COVID-19 antibody levels in fully vaccinated people. If we have adequate antibodies, then I feel a booster is not needed,” said Dr Santosh Bansode, HoD, Emergency Medicine, Wockhardt Hospitals.
“There is a chance that new variants will keep emerging, so we can’t keep giving people boosters again and again. We must continue research, but at a faster rate, to find a vaccine that will give us antibodies for at least a year. We should strictly follow what our national COVID-19 task force says about boosters, because their opinion will be unbiased and genuine, since they are not involved in any kind of vaccine business. They suggest measures purely on the basis of scientific research,” Bansode said.
“And, if we decide to give boosters, we must also study potential side effects,” he concluded.
How to detect booster side-effects
According to Dr Subhash Hira, the recipient of the booster vaccine dose may have clinical symptoms like palpitations, joint pain and muscular pain, and blood vessels coagulation in the form of deep vein thrombosis etc. Those with symptoms need to get a few blood tests done to ascertain autoimmune disorders, if any, and accordingly, seek medical advice/care.
1) C-Reactive Proteins (CRP) test
2) D-Dimer test
3) IL-6 test
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