Valeriu Gheorghita sends a last-minute warning for millions of Romanians all over the country, and this is because there is currently for them, based on the known information, a firm recommendation to vaccinate for the first time, or with a booster dose, for to have protection against the Omicron variant.
Valeriu Gheorghita says that despite the fact that the Omicron variant could bypass the antibodies, the vaccines would offer protection against severe forms of the disease, so for millions of Romanians who have been vaccinated, he recommends the booster dose, and for those who are not vaccinated, he recommends vaccination as soon as possible.
"It is unlikely, as I said, that a person who is vaccinated with the full schedule, and also has a booster dose, will need to take another dose with a vaccine adapted for the new version. It is unlikely that there will really be a need to administer an additional dose of vaccine to be adapted to people who have either been through the disease or are being vaccinated.
We do not expect that the people who are already vaccinated will lose so much protection without the severe forms, even if the protection against infection is reduced, and the protection against the high forms is maintained, then the recommendation is very clear, to continue vaccination with the same type of vaccine that we have in use today.
But really, the contracts signed by the European Commission allow that if a vaccine adaptation is needed, based on the same contract, the doses can be distributed to the countries that are part of the contact. From this point of view there would be no problem.
We have to be realistic and understand that at this moment all the data show us that this variant is highly transmissible, that it will very likely bypass the immune response, but we expect protection against serious forms of the disease to be maintained.
This suggests a few things to us, namely that vaccination with the current vaccines will prove its effectiveness in the next period, instead we need to vaccinate more people, especially the vulnerable, who are at risk of serious forms, and those who - they made the first scheme, to make their booster according to the recommendations."
