The Michael Garron Hospital, located on the eastern edge of Toronto, is considering a fourth injection of the COVID-19 vaccine for long-term care homes.
“In anticipation of the possibility of fourth doses being required in the coming days or weeks, we are proactively discussing the possibility with our long-term care home partners so that we can implement it quickly,” said Dr. Jeff Powis, Chief Medical Officer. of hospital infections. prevention and control, he wrote in an emailed statement to the Star on Sunday.
“With the exponential increase in cases in our community, the safety of residents in long-term care homes is a top priority and we are exploring all potential options for greater protection.”
At least one long-term care home on the east end has alerted family members that their loved ones might be eligible for a fourth vaccine in the near future, Star learned.
Toronto is in the midst of rolling out third-dose boosters as Public Health Ontario reported more than 10,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Christmas Day, a record number of infections since the pandemic began. Case counts are considered “underestimated” due to changes in test availability and the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
On Boxing Day, Ontario reported 9,826 new cases, with 11 COVID-19-related deaths over the holiday weekend.
On Christmas Eve, the Science Table Ontario panel reported that there were 518 people in the hospital with COVID-19 and 164 people in the ICU.
Currently, all Ontario residents age 18 and older are eligible to receive a booster dose of an mRNA vaccine three months after completing a primary series of COVID-19 vaccines.
Last month, Health Canada approved the use of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines as booster injections, designed to help adults maintain their protection against COVID-19 over time. That followed the recommendation of the National Immunization Advisory Committee (NACI) that populations at increased risk of COVID-19 disease should be offered a booster dose of an mRNA vaccine at least six months after completing their primary series. .
“Real-world data suggests that a booster dose provides good short-term vaccine effectiveness and has a similar safety profile to that of the second dose of the vaccine,” an Ontario health ministry on Dec. 16. document He says. “There is no evidence on the long-term effectiveness of booster doses, so it is not yet known how long this protective benefit might last.”
Although they only represent about 1.1 percent of the Canadian population, LTC residents accounted for roughly two-thirds of all reported deaths associated with COVID-19 during the first and second waves of the pandemic.
Dr. Jennifer Gommerman, a professor of immunology at the University of Toronto, said Sunday that the fourth doses of the COVID vaccine are “uncharted territory.”
However, he thinks it makes sense to give fourth doses to people at increased risk of COVID-19 infection. That includes residents of long-term care homes who received their third injection months ago and now “their antibody levels are definitely going down … (and) in the context of a massive, massive wave of Omicron.” Cases of the latest variant of the coronavirus are on the rise around the world, including Canada.
But Gommerman emphasized that for healthy people who have received three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, emerging data shows that “three doses of this vaccine give them really good protection against Omicron.”
Last week, Israel announced that adults 60 and older, medical workers and people with weakened immune systems could soon receive a fourth dose if three months had passed since the previous dose. An expert panel that advised the Israeli government on the pandemic recommended administering a fourth dose to vulnerable people.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US-based National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a recent interview that it was premature “at least for the United States to speak of a fourth dose.”
Reference-www.thestar.com