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Brazil’s national drug regulator, Anvisa, on Tuesday (Nov. 22) legalized the emergency use of two bivalent COVID-19 vaccines, produced through Pfizer, in opposition to the new subvariants of the Omicron coronavirus.
The vaccine will be given as a booster dose to other people 12 years of age and older, 3 months after the last booster dose.
Second-generation bivalent vaccines opposed to the original variant of the novel coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan province, China, but also opposed to newer subvariants of Omicron. The latter is more transmissible but milder, the virus concentrates in the throat and does not reach the lungs. The original variant is less contagious but more harmful and deadly.
Pfizer’s vaccines use messenger RNA technology, in which a portion of the spike protein, which is responsible for binding the virus to cells, is injected to stimulate antibody production. Bivalent vaccinators will have grey vials for easy identification.
It will now be up to the Ministry of Health to purchase bivalent vaccines. Currently, there is a contract for the acquisition of one hundred million doses from Pfizer to be delivered starting this year. It provides for the addition of 50 million doses, adding daily or pediatric vaccines, if the ministry orders them.
The director of Anvisa, Meiruze Souza Freitas, explained that bivalent vaccines are already used in several countries and, although the original vaccines are still effective, bivalent vaccines are more effective against the latter subvariants. Freitas insists on the importance of vaccination because, according to her, it is not imaginable to know the severity of the BA4/BA5 variants.
In August of this year, Pfizer sent Anvisa the first application for the bivalent vaccine that protects against the Omicron BA. 1 subvariant. At the end of September, the manufacturer submitted the request for investigation against the BA. 4 and BA subvariants. 5.
The agency’s resolution comes at a time when a number under development in the country is linked to the flow of a new subvariant of Omicron.
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