Their lives depend on a second shot

Re: “Cancer patients call to have second COVID jab sooner,” May 1.

I have a son with multiple myeloma (a type of blood cancer) who got his first shot of Pfizer-BioNTech five weeks ago, on March 30.

Data from the world’s first reported trial to examine the level of immune protection after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in cancer patients has found that anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses at week three following the first dose of the vaccine were only 39 per cent and 13 per cent in the solid and blood cancers, compared with 97 per cent in those without cancer.

The preprint study also reports that when the second dose of the vaccine was given three weeks after the first dose, the immune response improved significantly for solid cancer patients with 95 per cent of them showing detectable antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus within just two weeks.

By contrast, those who did not get a vaccine boost at three weeks did not see any real improvement, with only 43 per cent of solid cancer patients and eight per cent of blood cancer patients developing antibodies to the Pfizer vaccine at five weeks compared to 100 per cent of healthy controls.

Ontario and Alberta are giving second shots to these severely immunocompromised people as prescribed by the drug companies, but Dr. Bonnie Henry seems to have decided not to follow suit.

Research conducted by the Italian Hematology Alliance on COVID-19 and published in August in The Lancet Haematology shows that among 536 patients with a hematologic malignancy and COVID-19 included in the study, 37 per cent died. Hospitalized blood cancer patients’ covid mortality rate has been seen to be about 33 per cent.

Clearly everyone needs to be vaccinated, but it seems to be a waste of a first shot if cancer patients are not given the second shot in a timely manner.

I truly hope Henry changes her mind and puts these cancer patients at the head of the line for second shots.

Their lives depend on it.

Susan Freedman Parksville