The Public Health Commission, formed by the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities, has decided to extend the third dose of the coronavirus vaccine to the entire population over 18 years of age to face the sixth wave. This was agreed at a meeting held this Thursday and reported by the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias.
The last time the commission decided to expand the population groups that should receive the booster dose was in mid-December, and the change affected those between 40 and 59 years old, which means that the new measure is now aimed at age ranges from 18 to 39 years.
Health and the communities have also agreed to “reduce the interval for the booster doses from the six months that were established to five months,” reported Darias, who has called for further progress in vaccination at all ages because ” Vaccines save lives.”
These five months will also apply to another of the decisions adopted this Thursday by the Commission: it will be the time that will have to wait after the third dose to administer a fourth to the undepressed patients in group 7 of the vaccination strategy. There are about 120,000 people in total who suffer from cancer, an HIV infection or have received an organ transplant, among other profiles, and who were the first to receive the third puncture.
More than 12 million people in Spain are between 18 and 39 years old, although a small part has already received the booster dose by belonging to groups such as health personnel. Twentysomethings and thirtysomethings have proven to be the most resistant to vaccines. According to data from the Ministry of Health corresponding to this Wednesday, one in five people in these age groups have not wanted to be vaccinated to date, a proportion that contrasts with those who are in quarantine (88.5% have completed the guideline) and even with the youngest (87.2% of adolescents aged 12 to 19 have also done so).
Vaccination for people in their 30s kicked off in late June and early July, according to the community, and about a month later for those in their 20s. This means that the first to be vaccinated in these bands have completed five months since the second dose and can now receive the third, according to the new adaptation of the vaccination strategy agreed on this Thursday. This is the deadline set for messenger RNA vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna), which were received by almost all people in these ages.
The booster dose will also be of messenger RNA, although according to the vaccination strategy the third shot may be from any of the two vaccines of this type and not necessarily from the same one received in the first two.
With the new extension, the number of people for whom the booster dose is indicated now rises to 39.1 million, which represents 82.5% of the total population residing in Spain. Outside of this group, more than three million adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 remain without receiving the third dose. Children from 5 to 11 years old, for their part, are receiving the first dose these weeks and there is no approved vaccine for those under that age.
Although the administration of the booster doses continues to advance at a good pace —a million people have received it in the last week and more than 85% of those over 60 already have it—, Spain has lagged somewhat behind this time compared to neighboring countries, something that has also happened to Portugal and that contrasts with the first phases of the vaccination campaign, when the two countries of the Iberian Peninsula led the statistics within the EU. The reason is that here it has taken longer to start administering the third dose to those under 60 years of age. France and Germany, for example, already did so in November for everyone over 18 years of age.
According to the Oxford University repository OurWorldInData, which measures the number of booster doses per 100 inhabitants, Spain had administered 35 last Tuesday. This figure is notably lower than the 55 in Denmark, 46 in Belgium, 44 in Germany, 40 in Italy and 39 in France, the latter countries with much larger population groups opposed to vaccination than those in Spain.
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