By Claudio Puoti, Professor at UniCamillus
After giving the whole world the false hope that the pandemic was slowing down and that after the summer it could die out, SARS-CoV2 has started running again, causing thousands of victims again and spreading like wildfire.
We are facing a fearsome enemy, old and new at the same time: old because it belongs to the Coronavirus family, known for over 60 years as agents of minor respiratory conditions; new because it has undergone mutations that have allowed it to “leap in species” from bat to man, spreading to “virgin” populations who had never met him.
The efforts made so far all over the world have been worth little, from the lockdown to the red zones, from masks to curfew. The only hope lies in a new vaccine, which meets the criteria of safety, tolerability and efficacy.
Hundreds of laboratories around the world have been working around the clock for months, and at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases “L. Spallanzani ” in Rome the experimentation of an anti SARS-CoV2 vaccine is quite advanced.
And it is in this trial that I asked to participate as a volunteer, accepting the administration of the experimental vaccine and the inoculation of the viral “spike” surface protein carried by an adenovirus.
Why this choice by an infectious disease doctor who is no longer so young? It is not about courage or heroism or recklessness. Rather, it is a mixture of scientific curiosity, of duty towards the community, of awareness that the individual is at the service of the whole and not vice versa, of the awareness that, in any case, someone must start and pave the way for others.
And above all the need to turn the question “why me?” into “and why not me?”.
Claudio Puoti is Professor of Elements of Gastrointestinal Diseases in the Degree Course in Radiology, Diagnostic Imaging and Radiotherapy Techniques.
He also teaches Gastroesophageal Diseases in the First Level On-line Master in Deglutology and Related Disorders.