Carolina Darias, the Minister of Health, has just announced that the Public Health Commission has decided that there will be a fourth dose of the COVID vaccine “for the entire population”. Until now, vaccination plans only affected the elderly and “high risk” patients. With this decision, the situation changes again and the Ministry prepares to vaccinate everyone again. Why is this decision being made now?
When? How? Who? Beyond the announcement that it will affect the entire population, the minister has not been able to specify the procedures or the date. She has explained, yes, that the one that “is being considered as possible is around the fall, we are waiting for the arrival of new vaccines adapted to variants by that time, as is in the contracts we have signed with pharmaceutical companies.”
LESS than 100 DAYS for HERD IMMUNITY: Towards a FUTURE without PANDEMIC
a bit of context. Already in January of this year, the Public Health Commission already recommended the fourth injection of the vaccine to the “very high risk” population (immunosuppressed, transplant recipients, immunochromosome cancer patients, etc…). That vaccination would be five months after his last vaccination. On the other hand, both the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Center for Disease Control endorsed this booster dose for those over 80 years of age.
However, as Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccines at the European Medicines Agency (EMA), explained in February: “although the use of additional booster doses can be part of contingency plans, repeated vaccinations at short intervals do not represent a long-term sustainable strategy. So much so that the EMA (which was profiled with the third dose) has already declared that it does not see the need for a fourth generalized dose.
What has changed? It is not clear. But, in the absence of the reports and arguments behind the decision being made public, we cannot say that it is a surprise either. Spain (and the European Union as a whole) has committed many millions of vaccines. There is no doubt that the fourth dose provides an immunological plus; However, experts debate whether that extra is necessary.
Be that as it may, doubts are not restricted to that. Spain has been characterized by high levels of vaccination and, in turn, by the maintenance of tougher restrictions; But if the situation continues as it is now (and the coronavirus virtually no longer exists in the sphere of public debate), the future of that fourth dose is a complete unknown.
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