Speciale COVID-19

Vaccini

Chi deve fare la seconda dose booster del vaccino (o 'quarta dose')?
12/04/2022 AGGIORNAMENTO DEL 7 SETTEMBRE 2022 Il ministero della Salute ha aggiornato le indicazioni per la quarta dose dopo l'approvazione delle formulazioni dei vaccini aggiornate. Qui la circolare.    AGGIORNAMENTO DEL 12 LUGLIO 2022 Vista la nota congiunta dell’Agenzia europea per i medicinali (EMA) e del Centro europeo per la prevenzione e il controllo delle malattie (ECDC) pubblicata in data odierna, preso atto del parere analogo della CTS di...

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Quanto dura la protezione indotta dai vaccini anti-COVID-19?
07/01/2022 Ad oggi non è nota la durata della protezione di questi vaccini. Tuttavia studi hanno osservato un declino della protezione indotta da tali vaccini dopo circa 5 mesi dal completamento del ciclo vaccinale. Per tale motivo è indicata la somministrazione di una dose di richiamo. Inoltre, i soggetti vaccinati devono rispettare tutte le norme previste per contrastare la diffusione di SARS-CoV-2

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Useful information - How does Covid affect children?
10/12/2021 ISS 10 dicembre 2021  How does Covid affect children? Although Sars-CoV-2 affects children less than adults, it can represent a health hazard also in childhood: so much so that roughly 6 children out of 1,000 are hospitalized and nearly 1 out of 7,000 are in an intensive care unit. Moreover, also in the cases (fortunately the great majority) in which the infection develops completely asymptomatically, it is not possible to exclude the onse...

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How does the risk of infection vary over time after vaccination?
08/10/2021 October 8th 2021 - When the first dose of the vaccine is administered, the risk of infection is the same as for unvaccinated persons because the immune system needs a few weeks to give rise to the response. The response then grows and protection over time increases until it reaches its maximum about 15-28 days after the second dose. Vaccination therefore does not increase the risk of contracting the disease at any time.

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How is vaccine efficacy calculated?
08/10/2021 November 1st 2021 - The 'real world' efficacy analysis, performed weekly by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità – ISS (Italian National Institute of Health), is based on the pandemic data collected daily on the population and compares the frequency of the various events (infection, illness, illness with hospitalization, illness with hospitalization in intensive care, death) between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. This means that, unlike the res...

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Vaccinated versus unvaccinated, a comparison between cases shows that the vaccine works
20/07/2021 ISS, July 20th 2021 -    If vaccinations in the population reach high levels of coverage a paradox occurs, whereby the absolute number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths may be similar among the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated. However, in such cases, the incidence (intended as the ratio between the number of cases and the population) is about ten times lower in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated. Therefore, whe...

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Should vaccinated workers, including health care workers, maintain the use of PPE and medical devices, hand hygiene, phy...
16/03/2021 March 16th 2021 - All workers, including health care workers, should continue to strictly use PPE, prescribed medical devices, practice hand hygiene, physical distancing, and other precautions according to risk assessment, regardless of vaccination status. They should also participate in infection screening programs, wherever they exist.

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How does a viral vector-based vaccine workHow does a viral vector-based vaccine work?
03/02/2021 ISS, March 16th 2021- A viral vector-based vaccine uses a modified version of the chimpanzee adenovirus, no longer able to replicate, as a DNA vector to provide instructions to synthesize the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the nucleus of human cells. Once produced, the protein may stimulate a specific antibody and cell-mediated immune response. The technology is the same as that behind the first vaccine approved for Ebola in late 2019.

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Can the vaccine cause Covid
04/01/2021 The vaccines currently in use in Italy use mRNA technology (Pfizer-Biontech and Moderna) and viral vector technology (Astrazeneca). In the first case, the mRNA vaccine induces immunity by providing human cells only with the instructions to produce a fragment of the virus, the Spike protein, which will induce the production of specific antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Thus, no virus, either live or attenuated, is administered with these va...

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How long after being vaccinated doHow long after being vaccinated does an individual acquire protection against the viru...
03/01/2021 The efficacy observed in clinical trials refers to a few days after the administration of the second dose. Therefore, maximum protection occurs after this period. Although, according to preliminary data from the ongoing campaign, some protection is also likely to occur after the first dose, this does not happen immediately following the inoculation of the vaccine, but develops progressively at least 7-14 days after the injection. The second dose ...

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Is the Sars-CoV-2 vaccine risky for people with celiac disease?
29/12/2020 There is no scientific evidence to suggest that people with celiac disease have a higher risk than the general population of developing adverse effects following the administration of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Therefore, when it comes to vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, it is recommended that people with celiac disease follow the Public Health Authorities’ guidance addressed to the general population.

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Can breastfeeding women be vaccinated against Sars-CoV-2?
29/12/2020 As previously envisaged in the interim guidance by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità – ISS (Italian National Institute of Health), breastfeeding women may get vaccinated, without any need to stop breastfeeding. Breastfeeding women should be informed that vaccination will not expose their infant to any risks, and that infants will receive antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 through mother’s milk. Infants breastfed by a vaccinated mother will follows th...

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Are vaccines against Sars-CoV-2 effective
28/12/2020 In order to be approved by the regulatory authorities, all vaccines must have proven to be effective. Human trials of several dozen other candidates are underway around the world, some of which are in advanced stages and will be approved if they are found to be effective and safe.

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What evidence is there of their safety, since they were approved so quickly?
24/12/2020 The tests required by the authorities and carried out on the candidate vaccines against Sars-Cov-2 are the same as for all the other previously approved drugs and vaccines. In Europe, it was possible to speed up the process thanks to the greater resources available and by adopting a particular documentation review system, which involves examining the results of the various trial phases as they are produced and not all at once at the very end.

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RNA based vaccines will be used for the first time. What does that mean?
24/12/2020 December 24th 2020 - In a vaccine, the 'weakened' virus (or bacterium), or a part of it, is usually injected. The immune system recognizes the 'intruder' and produces antibodies that it will use when it encounters the 'real' virus. Instead, in the case of RNA vaccines the 'instructions' are injected to produce a particular protein, the so-called 'spike' protein, which is used by the virus 'stick' to cells. The cell then produces the 'foreign' pro...

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Like all vaccines, Sars-Cov-2 vaccines can also cause side effects. During the trial, common reactions were observed, th...
24/12/2020 In addition to not having the "instructions" to modify DNA, messenger RNA never enters the nucleus of the cell, which contains the genome; this means that messenger RNA can in no way alter DNA. Moreover, messenger RNA degrades after few days, once it has performed its "task".

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What are the side effects?
24/12/2020 December 12th 2021 - Like all vaccines, Sars-Cov-2 vaccines can also cause side effects. During the trial, common reactions were observed, that were previously reported with other vaccinations. However, all countries that have adopted the vaccine, including Italy, have put in place a surveillance system for the reporting of adverse effects.

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Speciale COVID-19