IMM Professor and Principal Investigator Miguel Castanho was live on SIC Notícias to comment on the Vaccination Plan proposal for Covid-19 in Portugal.

Starting by looking at the age range of clinical trials carried out for possible vaccines, Miguel Castanho noted that “if the tests are being carried out with people who reach an age limit of up to 75 years, for example, we will have the certainty, as absolute as humanly possible, regarding that range, but not outside it”. After that age, the Professor said, "we are not working with substantial results".

Miguel Castanho also considers that there have been many “premature discussions” on the topic and highlights the decisive and crucial role of the regulatory authorities in the accreditation of the studies delivered to them for validation, in order to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of the vaccine in question. "It will have to be the regulatory authority, according to the results presented, to decide on the age limit for safety", declared the Professor, referring to the specific case of Moderna, which expects to receive on 17 December the official resolution by the American regulatory authority.

Only from that moment, defends Miguel Castanho, it is sensible to begin to outline a Vaccination Plan. "Until then, we are very speculative about it," he said.

It should be noted that, in the Vaccination Plan for Covid-19 in Portugal, 6 vaccines from different pharmaceutical companies are listed, whose effectiveness is around 90%. Of the six vaccines listed, three are already being evaluated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), specifically the vaccine from Pfizer/Biontech; the one from Astrazeneca/Oxford University; and the one from Moderna.

Portugal is expected to receive 22 million doses as of January next year, with storage scheduled to be coordinated by the armed forces, according to information provided by SIC.

Speaking to the same TV channel, Miguel Castanho stressed that "there can only be a well-defined plan when we know exactly what we can count on, under what circumstances, and what these vaccines are suitable for and to whom they can be administered".

Alerting to the fact that “some of these vaccines are very similar to each other in the way they work, but very different in the way they are handled”, the Professor poses a pertinent question: “Is it worthwhile to be creating the infrastructure to use one of them, if later we will have the other available too? ”.

Miguel Castanho defends that “we should always avoid rushing, we should avoid starting to vaccinate quickly with all the vaccines that arrive or with all that are at hand, because this may eventually not make sense”, he said in an analysis of the criteria in practice for choosing the vaccine and respective administration to the population.

Another important note that Miguel Castanho was keen to mention is related to the possible side effects of the vaccine. "It has been said that there are no adverse effects, but there are adverse effects on vaccines." "What is meant is that there are no serious adverse effects," he said.

Considering there is "some optimism and haste" regarding the announced dates for the start of vaccination against Covid-19 in Portugal, Miguel Castanho reiterated that "haste - like fear - is a bad advisor". "I believe that we may be giving people the notion that all this will happen very quickly," he said, also revealing that "until the effect is noticed, several months will pass, and in those months we cannot let our guard down, we will have to continue with the measures we currently have”.

Miguel Castanho concluded the interview to SIC Notícias, which you can view here,  expressing the fear that this haste may jeopardize a plan “with an effective return in the medium and long term”, saying that “only next winter will we probably have a real notion of the effectiveness of vaccination”, given the seasonality characteristics of the new coronavirus.

Professor Miguel Castanho was also invited to participate in  a debate on the topic at TVI 24, which included the participation of Pedro Caetano, also Principal Investigator at iMM, and one of the volunteers in the vaccine tests for AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, Carla Freitas.

Starting by ensuring that “the vaccination process is going to be a complex one”, Miguel Castanho stressed that we must bear in mind the wide range of vaccines currently available, as well as the age ranges of the respective clinical trials that attest to their effectiveness and safety. "The Vaccination Plan has to consider that we are going to have several vaccines, that they will not appear all at the same time, will have a different suitability for different people, and will be associated with very different logistics".

Before any plan is defined, we must first have rigorous knowledge and concrete validation of the matter and circumstances inherent to it. In this sense, Miguel Castanho again appealed to the common sense and caution that must prevail at this moment. In the Professor's opinion, it is essential to “wait for what will be the certification of the regulatory entities”, and then make all decisions in order to have a properly reasoned and consistent plan.