CHANGES in time lapses between vaccine doses have been made in Spain, for children and adults alike, and depending upon whether or not they have become infected with Covid recently, the health ministry has announced.
For those aged five to 11 inclusive, who started getting their jabs around Christmas, any who have tested positive after their first dose will not be given the second at the standard eight-week interval, since the antibodies from the Covid will, effectively, serve as a 'booster'.
They will instead have their second jab at least eight weeks after diagnosis, provided they have fully recovered.
Those who have never had Covid will continue as before, with a second dose eight weeks after the first.
Children under 12 who have caught and recovered from Covid before receiving either dose will only have one, given to them not less than eight weeks after diagnosis.
At present, given that children's immunisation did not start until mid-December, nobody under 12 has yet had a second jab.
Adults who have had both doses and then caught Covid after them were originally to have to wait just four weeks between recovery or negative testing and their third jab, but this has now been extended to five months.
This move has come following concerns from immunologists and epidemiologists that the booster injection would be less effective after only one month, since the patient would still be protected by his or her natural immunity.
According to the health ministry: “Current evidence shows that having become infected with SARS-CoV-2 after having been fully vaccinated generates a more powerful and wider scope of immune response, in terms of neutralising other variants of the virus, compared with the immune response observed in persons who had solely become infected, or solely had their full quota of vaccines.”
This response also takes the new Omicron mutation into account, stating that according to scientific research results to date, catching this variant 'increases response in memory cells to viral antigens different to the S-protein, compared with infections caused by the Delta variant post-vaccination', which 'indicates a broader scope of immunity'.
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