Elisabeth Bouvet, president of the technical commission for vaccination at the High Authority for Health, indicated this Saturday on franceinfo that it was not “not at all sure that we will need a fourth dose” vaccine against Covid-19. More than 52.2 million people have a complete vaccination schedule, i.e. 79.4% of the French population. While the third dose will be necessary to keep your health pass after January 15, is a fourth dose necessary? “We are studying the question. We currently have no data that allows us to justify this measure”, she says.
franceinfo: Why did you authorize a fifth vaccine, Novavax?
Elizabeth Bouvet: It’s to be able to convince about the vaccination of people who don’t get vaccinated because they don’t want to receive a messenger RNA vaccine, so it’s a classic vaccine that is made with a protein , the Spike protein, an adjuvant that stimulates immunity. This vaccine has efficacy data that is quite good. We say to ourselves that probably, perhaps a certain number of those reluctant to vaccination will accept this vaccination. The Novavax vaccine which is also made with two doses of vaccine three weeks apart.
Are we headed straight for a fourth dose?
We have not issued an opinion on the fourth dose. For the moment, it is not at all certain that we will need a fourth dose. For us, it is clear that the vaccination schedule is two doses plus one dose, that is to say the three doses. A primary vaccination, a booster. People who are very at risk and especially who are immunocompromised, that is to say who respond poorly to vaccination, will most certainly need a fourth dose to stimulate their immunity, moreover we are already doing this. For the rest of the population, it is not at all certain. We are studying the question. We currently have no data that allows us to justify this measure, which will take into account both the duration of the immunity obtained with the booster and the evolution of the epidemic. For us, it is not at all said that this fourth thing should be done.
Do new variants always arrive weakening?
Not necessarily. It’s true that usually, the aggressiveness of the different variants that evolve over time tends towards a decrease. But with the Covid-19 we have seen a lot of things that we had not seen until now. We can not know. What is important to consider is that the further we go in time, the more the population is immunized overall, has a certain immunity to viruses, either because of vaccination, or in addition to a infection, which means that the overall immunity of the population increases and that, suddenly, the expected damage that a virus of this family can cause is likely to be less significant since the population will be globally immunized.
Can we achieve this famous collective immunity?
We already had one. The impact of successive waves is diminishing. The proportion of people who go to the hospital each time and especially who go to critical care decreases each time thanks to this immunity that everyone has which means that we are currently protected very effectively from severe forms.