I'm honestly not sure which is riskier, monkeypox or a 1/200 risk of myocarditis. Fractional dosing of the other vaccine sounds like a much better course of action to me.
On the evidence we have, it does seem that way. So far I think there are around 9 recorded deaths with MPXV from the tens of thousands of cases. Deaths aren't the whole story of course but it does impact the risk-benefit analysis here.
The problem is for the fractional ID dosing option, the safety and efficacy data come from a small population. So I certainly hope it's representative but it's hard not to have some reservations.
"As long as the boosters are sensibly spaced, there’s really no such thing as 'too many' from an individual standpoint, says Moore."
With that qualifier, it sounds an awful lot like there IS such a thing as too many, and I wish that he had specified what "sensibly spaced" means to him. To me I don't think they should be more frequent than every 12 weeks (and even that seems very short), but that is based on my theoretical understanding of how antigen recognition matures and not a practical understanding of medicine.
You know infinitely more than I do, but my reaction was that there is likely to be a diminishing returns effect if you space them too close (before the immunity has time to fade), and at some point the side effects (fatigue, etc.) are actually bad enough that it isn't worth the small or undetectable improvement in immunity.
Yes, agreed--my self-doubt is over what the actual best interval is. I could see anywhere from 3 to 12 months being viable as an answer. Maybe it's a question to be interrogated in a future study.
whoa. only 20% against transmission even if boosted? I knew 'fully vaxed' was at this point a useless gathering requirement re transmission but thought up to date was better
something mentioned on this week in virology as an additional argument for intradermal: in the current priority population there's a lot of folk who don't actually have much if any fat layer, and accidentally going IM really sucks.
For what it's worth, 20% is different from zero. I'm basing this on a meta-analysis of household secondary attack rate, by the way. So, it does come with some limitations. But I no longer put a lot of faith in impacts on transmission with current vaccines.
I'm honestly not sure which is riskier, monkeypox or a 1/200 risk of myocarditis. Fractional dosing of the other vaccine sounds like a much better course of action to me.
On the evidence we have, it does seem that way. So far I think there are around 9 recorded deaths with MPXV from the tens of thousands of cases. Deaths aren't the whole story of course but it does impact the risk-benefit analysis here.
The problem is for the fractional ID dosing option, the safety and efficacy data come from a small population. So I certainly hope it's representative but it's hard not to have some reservations.
Nature has an article on which booster to get for COVID-19, and how much to space 'em out:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02221-w
The unsurprising answer: experts disagree.
Reading this, I'm struck by the following:
"As long as the boosters are sensibly spaced, there’s really no such thing as 'too many' from an individual standpoint, says Moore."
With that qualifier, it sounds an awful lot like there IS such a thing as too many, and I wish that he had specified what "sensibly spaced" means to him. To me I don't think they should be more frequent than every 12 weeks (and even that seems very short), but that is based on my theoretical understanding of how antigen recognition matures and not a practical understanding of medicine.
You know infinitely more than I do, but my reaction was that there is likely to be a diminishing returns effect if you space them too close (before the immunity has time to fade), and at some point the side effects (fatigue, etc.) are actually bad enough that it isn't worth the small or undetectable improvement in immunity.
Yes, agreed--my self-doubt is over what the actual best interval is. I could see anywhere from 3 to 12 months being viable as an answer. Maybe it's a question to be interrogated in a future study.
"Bi" and "quadri" are Latin numeric prefixes, so if you say "bivalent", you should also say "quadrivalent". "-valent" is from Latin "valentia".
"Di" and "tetra" are Greek numeric prefixes, so where you use "di", you should use "tetra". E.g. "carbon dioxide" and "carbon tetrachloride".
I figured it was something like this. Yet, strangely, this does not stop the 4-valent meningitis vaccine from being referred to as "tetravalent."
Is the currently circulating avian flu any danger to humans?
This is an interesting question with some complexity to the answer. I'd like to address it in a future issue.
whoa. only 20% against transmission even if boosted? I knew 'fully vaxed' was at this point a useless gathering requirement re transmission but thought up to date was better
something mentioned on this week in virology as an additional argument for intradermal: in the current priority population there's a lot of folk who don't actually have much if any fat layer, and accidentally going IM really sucks.
For what it's worth, 20% is different from zero. I'm basing this on a meta-analysis of household secondary attack rate, by the way. So, it does come with some limitations. But I no longer put a lot of faith in impacts on transmission with current vaccines.