DR. PETER HOTEZ: MEDICAL PERSON OF THE YEAR

Intown’s Medical Person Of The Year

Peter Hotez

His leadership in trying to halt the spread of the coronavirus is a tough job and Dr. Hotez has been up to the task

The Covid-19 vaccine was developed in record time which is a good thing. However, for many people this fact has also made them skeptical of the vaccine. The quick turnaround time from development to approval to having shots into arms happened due to a lengthy program of research and development according to Houston virologist Dr. Peter Hotez, one of the world’s foremost authorities on disease and vaccines.

Peter Hotez M.D., Ph.D is an advocate for science and vaccines for a healthier society. His beliefs are trumpeted in the book spawned from his autistic daughter’s 2018 book, Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism.

Dr. Hotez is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Co-director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development. Hotez is an internationally recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development and received the Abraham Horwitz Award for Excellence in Leadership in Inter-American Health from the World Health Organization. Fortune Magazine named him one of the thirty-four most influential people in health care.

During the previous ten years prior to the pandemic Hotez and his colleagues have provided a basis for the development of Operation Warp Speed. Despite the rather quick to market vaccines that have provided some fuel for vaccine hesitancy. When posed the question of whether the Covid-19 vaccines can be for real he responds, that the answer is it didn’t. “ It’s been a 10 year R&D program just like any other vaccine. When people hear that, that actually builds confidence”, status Hotez.

Despite some vaccine hesitancy the higher percentage of vaccinated people have shown a drastic reduction in Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

He has been a pioneer in treatments and education to the public about the benefits of vaccines. Hotez has been maintaining all along to rid ourselves of this pandemic that has killed over a half a million people and to get back to a nomal life like in 2019 prior to the public we must have a much greater percentage of people vaccinated.

“With the anti-vaccine lobby we have had to prove to the public that it is a safe and effective vaccine that was built on our research, and my colleagues’ research over the last decade and is the same approach that we used for SARS and MERS, explains Hotez.

He has gone on African American talk radio shows, conservative talk radio shows and TV stations. “I’ve done Newsmax, and back on Fox News. It’s great. I really enjoy being able to talk to different groups of people, and really understand what the basis of their hesitancy is, says Hotez.

All that work over the last decade has laid the groundwork for the current generation of Covid-19 vaccines and Hotez and his team has used that same playbook in the development of his own Covid-19 vaccine that’s now being scaled up for production in India. With over a billion doses being made and tested in India, his development of a low cost Covid-19 vaccine for global health can fill an enormous hole right now.

Hotez maintains his relentless pursuit of education, research and vaccine safety awareness in his goal toward a healthier society.

Q&A with Dr. Peter Hotez

How has Houston fared overall thus far in battling the pandemic?

I think that Houston has done better than most metropolitan areas, because of the commitment of our two local health departments — Houston Health Dept and Harris County — to make vaccines and vaccinations accessible. Also our amazing Texas Medical Center hospitals had the capacity and heft to ensure that we could handle deadly Covid surges on ICUs.

What guidelines should we look for to keep ourselves safe now that most of us are vaccinated and ready to move on with our lives?

The current guidelines are placeholders in a sense until we fully vaccinate the population of Texas. If we can achieve this by the summer, then our quality of life improves and starts to resemble what life was like in 2019. The exception is that our air travel will be limited to domestic flights and just a few countries such as Canada, UK, Israel, some Western European nations where people are fully vaccinated.

For pregnant women and kids, what should they do with regards to vaccinations?

Emerging safety data shows that the vaccines are likely to be safe in pregnant women, and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has endorsed vaccines. For good reason, pregnant women don’t do well with Covid and have higher hospitalization rates, ICU admissions, and deaths compared to non-pregnant women. We now also have some safety and efficacy data in 12-15 year olds for the Pfizer Biontech vaccine and others to follow, so that hopefully we can vaccinate adolescents by the fall school year. The younger kids will likely have to wait longer, possibly not until 2022.

Is it safe to assume that there will be a booster of some sort fairly soon to further protect against infection?

I think a booster (third dose of Pfizer Biontech or Moderna) is likely later this year or next year, to not only increase virus neutralizing antibodies and durability of protection but also to target some of the additional emerging variants of concern. For our vaccine developed at Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital we are also looking at the potential for a booster. Our vaccine is now being scaled for production by Biological E in Hyderabad, India.