(04-17-2021, 09:23 PM)deanhills Wrote: Here's a good article about the status in South Africa presently:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/...ost-lives/
In summary, South African authorities temporarily stopped vaccinations however authorities are under great pressure by local public health specialists to continue as soon as possible as only 230,000 health workers have been vaccinated to date.
I thought so, indeed!.. What a conundrum!..
As I hinted to in my previous post the pause in the US -but also in SA- although medically justifiable has some PR stunt into-it, as you also suggested in your post. The pause should have a reassuring effect for the public that the 'authorities' has it under control and that they know what they're doing etc...
But especially in SA where AFAIK there is no serious alternative (Sputnik V, may be ?)
On the substance though and
in my opinion, one in a million probability risk of a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine–Induced Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (aka SARS-CoV-2 VITT) shouldn't be an obstacle in deploying the J&J vaccine (nor the Oxford/AstraZeneca vax.) now that we know this serious side effect and that we can educate the vaccinated people to be on the lookout for its signs 5/6 days to 2 wks after injection. The treatment -which does exist- for the eventual cases should be available and the cases should be dispached to the nearest equipped treatment center upon early signs.
About the newly described syndrome called: SARS-CoV-2 VITT (Vaccine–Induced Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia.)
Please read the editorial of
the New England Journal of Medicine of April the 9th which was entitled:
SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine–Induced Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia.
The editorial has all the contest and information linked to the 39 cases caused by the Oxford/AstraZeneka vaccine, as two teams of researchers in 2 recently published papers in the same journal seem to show that
all cases tested positive for antibodies against platelet factor 4 (PF4.)
>
Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia after ChAdOx1 nCov-19 Vaccination
>
Thrombosis and Thrombocytopenia after ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Vaccination
The interesting thing here is that these anti-PF4 antibodies are also observed in the 6 women of the J&J cases.
The real puzzle now is where those antibodies come from? and I'll let the researcher tell us what he thinks:
Quote:“Whether these antibodies are autoantibodies against PF4 induced by the strong inflammatory stimulus of vaccination or antibodies induced by the vaccine that cross-react with PF4 and platelets requires further study,” wrote Andreas Greinacher from the University of Griefswald in Germany, and his co-authors. They suggested that one possible trigger of these PF4 reactive antibodies could be free DNA in the vaccine.
If the PF4 reactive antibodies trigger was indeed thefree DNA in the vaccine then the problem is the O/AZ vaccine platform and probably also in the J&J vaccine platform, and in this eventuality it would be interesting to see if Sputnik V also has any SARS-CoV-2 VITT issue of its own!...
For the unaware -and I've said this many times in my posts in this thread- O/AZ, J&J and Sputnik V are all adenovirus-based vaccines and -as things look currently- that might be the issue triggering those rare instances of SARS-CoV-2 VITT syndrome cases.
Stay safe!