Many people living with HIV are wondering whether the vaccines are appropriate for them and where they will end up in the queue.
Reassuringly, current evidence indicates that vaccination is safe for this population.
As the first COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out around the world, HIV/AIDS experts and advocates have sought to reassure HIV patients that they can safely receive the coronavirus vaccination.
In some countries, HIV and AIDS-positive people have been considered a part of the high-priority patient group and allow them to receive alongside the most at-risk groups – the elderly and frontline healthcare workers – have received their shots.
Germany, for example, has been including HIV-positive people in a third tier of priority patients – along with the over-60s, people with conditions such as heart, kidney, and liver disease, and those working in key sectors like education.
In Britain, on the other hand, will be including HIV patients in the sixth priority group for vaccination, after those aged 65 and over, healthcare workers and people with more severe health conditions.
One health researcher stated in an interview with POZ.com “There is no reason to believe that people with HIV should not get the vaccine. It is not a live vaccine, and it is safe and efficacious across diverse groups,” Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, medical director of the Ward 86 HIV clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, told POZ. “I will be encouraging my patients with HIV, especially those on antiretroviral therapy, to get the vaccine. I totally recommend it.”
Now, our country is rolling out vaccinations on a wider scale.
On December 11, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization for the first COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, after an expert advisory panel voted overwhelmingly that its benefits outweigh the risks.
Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson have distributed vaccines nationwide. So what does this mean for HIV and AIDS patients?
According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines employ a novel messenger RNA (mRNA) approach that uses nanoparticles, or fat bubbles, to deliver bits of genetic material that encode instructions for making the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which the coronavirus uses to enter human cells.
When injected into a muscle, the cells produce the protein, triggering an immune response. The mRNA degrades quickly in the body, and it does not alter human genes.
Clinical trials with findings published in the New England Medical Journal, which included about 30,000 people, showed that the Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective in HIV patients according to FDA briefing documents released ahead of a public advisory committee meeting on December 17, 2020.
In this study, there were 196 cases of symptomatic COVID-19 observed at least 14 days after the second dose: 185 in the placebo group and 11 in the vaccine group. What’s more, Moderna presented additional data showing that the vaccine also appears to reduce asymptomatic infection by two thirds.
According to the FDA report, both trials enrolled people with stable HIV.
For more information, please visit FDA.org.
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