Margaret Keenan, a British nonagenarian, was the first person in the world to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus on December 8, 2020, less than a year after the World Health Organization (WHO) will declare public health emergency of international importance by the Covid On January 30, 2020. On December 27, it was the turn of Araceli Hidalgo, the first Spanish to receive a dose of the new vaccines developed with messenger RNA, a discovery of Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman who earned them the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2023. Five years after the pandemic embryo, one of the big doubts continues to persist: How long does immunity last against COVID?
“That is the doubt we all have. It is precisely this type of studies that we are developing from now Effective, powerful, and even lastingbut we don’t know exactly how much duration. Of course, There is no data to say that it is for life, much less, but it can endure at least one year“explains a 20 minutes the president of the Spanish Society of Immunology (SEI), Marcos López Hoyos.
With him coincides by the outgoing president of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, Óscar Zurriaga. In his opinion, it cannot yet be said that immunity lasts for a lifetime: “For what we know, at this time, no. We have suffered more than one episode of Covid, after having passed the disease and being correctly vaccinated. That is, immunity is not lasting, “he assures this newspaper. It should be remembered that Covid vaccines, such as flu, prevent serious disease developed by infection, but not so much infections. It is for this reason why the number of deaths has been significantly reduced -in Spain more than 150,000 people died from the beginning of the pandemic Sanitary for the Covid, while in the current season, since the end of September 2024, health counts 22 deaths-but the population continues to infect a virus that continues to mutate in subversions of itself that allow it to remain infected.
The Immunologist Yvelise Barrios del Pino and Professor at the University of La Laguna (Tenerife), notes that “what has been published and demonstrating in these five years is that the immune response against COVID achieved by vaccination, including the successive adaptations of the original vaccine, together with the infection, is quality and persistence. As in any infection, it has been shown that there are patients who develop a post-infectious or Long-Covid syndrome that requires more research and development of personalized treatments, but The vast majority develop a robust responsedurable and adapted to the new versions of the virus. ”
In a recent interview with EFEthe immunologist of the La Paz University Hospital of Madrid Carmen Cámara has abounded in the subject. The specialist specifies that Cell immunity “will probably last for life”. When we infect, it continues, “we have a combined immunity”, both humoral – the one that is quickly measured with an antibody test – as a cell phone –which is based on T lymphocytes and confers long -term protection-. Both types of immunity “are formed at the same time and we already know that they last a long time. [De] The humoral, we probably do not detect the antibodies, but the bone marrow producing cells are. Vaccines produce more humoral than cell phone and that is why we measured and saw a decrease in antibodies at three months and that is why we thought immunity was lost. Currently, we believe that cell immunity can last for life. “
CSIC Immunologist Matilde Cañelles also does not consider immunity to last a lifetime. “No. Based on other studies with other types of coronavirus, It is not so durable. To the point that you are not going to pass the disease, no. Studies have been made to observe the same person for several seasons to see which cold virus have passed, and repeat themselves. I mean, they spend it a year, the next maybe not, but the other yes. “For this reason, Cañelles considers “necessary for vulnerable people” to continue vaccinating covid every year during the flu immunization campaign. “For the rest not, just as you don’t get vaccinated against a cold,” he adds.
Vaccination rates worldwide
After the first vaccination and administration campaigns of the souvenir doses in full pandemic, the punctures have been dispensed for four years next to the flu vaccine at the beginning of the cold season each year for the most vulnerable population groups exposed and exposed to these infections. Spain reached one of the largest vaccination coverage percentages in the world, with 87% of the total population with the complete pattern. In total, more than 13,600 million vaccines have been administered worldwide. Other ‘very vaccinated’ countries are Arab Emirates (99%), Chile (93%), Australia (85%), Canada (83%) or China (87%), according to data of WHO.
This last country opted for the ‘Covid Zero’ strategy with “advantages, but also many inconveniences.” According to the spokeswoman for the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC), María del Mar Tomás, less infections were recorded by Covid but, on the other hand, during the last season there has been “great affectation” for another type of virus such as metapneumovirus in the childish population due to lack of prior exposure. “They were as little immunized to seasonal viruses and that has harmed the child population,” he says.
Relate the vaccination rate against the coronavirus with the current epidemiological situation is not always easy, because in countries with the least access to the doses -such as many of the African continent or others of the east of the European or Russia -, in turn, “probably many infections have not been detected.” In addition, in Africa“There are other diseases of greater prominence such as malaria, ebola or the smallpox of the monkey,” says Dr. Tomás. Among the countries with the lowest reported vaccination rate are the Democratic Republic of Congo (16%), Cameroon or Gabon (with 12%), Algeria (15%), Mali (18%), Senegal (9%), Papua New Guinea (4%) or Haiti (3%), according to the WHO data.
Although the COVID does not be considered a seasonal virus such as the flu, the specialists consulted by 20 minutes They consider that maintaining the current vaccination scheme, with annual reinforcements next to the flu, “is not a bad idea.” This is considered Zurriaga, who also warns that “vaccination coverage against respiratory viruses are not to throw rockets, they are at pre-pondemic levels, so we have a lot of room to increase them.”
The same emphasizes the epidemiologist Joan Caylà, who sees “with a A certain concern that, in the last three or four years, the vaccination coverage of the flu and the COVID in the elderly has been going down year after yearperhaps due to the influence of denialists or pandemic fatigue, but you have to make an effort to achieve higher coverage, around 90% in vulnerable people. This is the way these people do not suffer from these infections or, if they suffer, they have them in an attenuated way. “The specialist warns that this season” has been observed that people have vaccinated less covid than flu “, so it also advocates to continue with the current vaccination scheme to” take advantage of “the puncture against the flu to administer in the other arm of the co. He fears that if the appointment to get vaccinated from the COVID was at another time of the year the coverage would further lower: “The simplest from the strategic point of view is to be vaccinated simultaneously.”
#immunity #COVID #life #big #doubt #persists #years #pandemic
