Geoff: The fda and CDC signed
off this week on updated
covid-19 vaccines to boost
protection and limit the
anticipated seasonal search this
fall, an important turning point
in the fight against covid.
Joining us to talk about that
and more is Dr. Peter hotez
, the codirector of the center
for vaccine development at Texas
children's hospital and Dean of
the national school of tropical
medicine at Baylor college of
medicine.
The retooled vaccines are
authorized for everyone 12 and
older, but does everyone 12 and
older need a booster?
>> 12 and older for pfizer and
18 and older for modern.
The answer is yes and here is
why.
It looks as though protection
from the mrna primary series of
two shots or even after a
booster starts to wane or
decline, even against
hospitalization protection, so
the point is everyone's going to
need a booster, which means that
if you have not got --
obviously, if you have not
gotten vaccinated, you need to
get vaccinated.
If you have been vaccinated but
not boosted yet, now is the time
to do it.
And even if you've gotten a
single booster, you need two
boosters.
If you are over 50 and have
gotten two boosters and are more
than two to four months out, you
are going to need a third
booster as well, a fifth
immunization.
The reason is twofold.
One, it will dramatically reduce
the likelihood that you'll be
hospitalized or have to go to an
icu with covid-19.
Second, the existing lineages is
still with us, the ba-5, so this
gives protection from that and
the subvariant.
The last reason, which people
don't talk about a lot, is we
really don't know what's coming
down the pike.
We don't know what's going to
happen this fall and winter and
whether we will see a brand-new
variant of concern that we have
not seen before.
And the thinking is by having a
booster that gets both the
original lineage and ba-5, it
hedges your bets and gives you
two shots on goal to make it
more likely it will protect
against whatever is coming down
the road.
Geoff: I want to ask about
monkeypox, because cases across
the country are on the decline,
but black and hispanic people
are more likely to get monkeypox
but less likely to get
vaccinated.
It's not entirely clear what's
driving the differences.
But this isn't the first disease
to see the same sort of
inequity.
That was the case at the
beginning of the covid pandemic.
What needs to change to prevent
this from happening with the
next outbreak of another
disease?
>> Well, we have to expand
awareness and the importance of
getting vaccinated.
You are right.
We're not getting that steep,
sharp uptick in the number of
cases, but it's still
increasing, although it's not as
not as sharp, and probably
that's happening because of some
modulation of behavior and the
fact that now we have a few
100,000 doses of vaccine
administered, but we still have
a long way to go.
So we really need to reach
communities of color about the
importance of getting
vaccinated.
And I know the Biden
administration is working very
hard on that, but it has still
been tough to do.
And on top of that, geoff you
have the other piece that we
don't talk about enough is that
black and brown communities are
getting specifically targeted
now by anti vaccine activist
groups.
They're being very predatory and
targeting those groups and so
countering their effects is
going to be really important.
Geoff: I also want to ask you
about what's happening in
Argentina.
Health officials there are
investigating investigating an
unexplained pneumonia outbreak.
Three people have died this past
week.
What more do you know about it?
>> It's 11 cases in a part of
northwest Argentina near salta.
It's fairly focal. And it's
presenting with what's called
bilateral pneumonia, meaning
whiteout on both lungs and chest
x-ray.
We don't know what it is yet.
It's not even necessarily an
infectious disease pathogen, but
the fact that they're presenting
with fever and shortness of
breath makes me think that's a
high likelihood.
So likely a viral pneumonia.
We also know coronavirus is are
widespread among the bat
populations in both Brazil and
Argentina, and therefore we have
to worry about this could be
another new coronavirus.
The virus has been sent to a
reference laboratory in
Argentina.
Hopefully, by this week will
have some identification and
then can take appropriate
action.
Geoff: Dr. Peter hotez, thanks