For days, scientists – virologists and infectious disease specialists – as well as doctors have been asking to push on the fourth dose of vaccine (or second booster) to stem the wave of Omicron. Studies have shown that the new injection “The protection against serious illness triples” for the over 60s but the protection against infection is short-lived. A duration that, however, would allow the virus to be stemmed at a time when circulation is very high. In three months of availability of the fourth dose of the anti-Covid vaccine according to official data it was administered to 1,291,979, 29.1% of the audience therefore less than 1 out of 3. 349,803 immunocompromised, 44.2% are instead of the total, who completed the vaccination cycle with recall for at least 4 months. While 359,179 (8.12% of the population potentially subject to the second booster dose) recovered after the first booster dose for a maximum of 6 months.
In recent days, the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, had made an appeal and a communication campaign was launched yesterday. Following the indications of the European Medicines Agency (Ema), since last April 14, the ministry has recommended the administration of a second booster dose or fourth dose, pfor the elderly and frail categories, in consideration of the fact that it occurs 4 months after the first booster dose a clear reduction in coverage against Sars-Cov-2.
The administration of a second booster dose restores vaccination coverage and is essential for the protection of the most fragile subjects, more exposed to the risk of serious disease from Covid-19. For now, the recipient categories of the second booster dose are elderly people over 80, elderly residents in nursing homes, over 60 with highly fragile conditions, family members and caregivers of the people of the target categories. But it is not probable that the audience could be extended to other sections of the population. The fourth dose started on March 1st for the immunosuppressed. In recent days, the councilor for health of the Regine Lazio had also asked to evaluate the booster for the over 70s.
For Fabrizio Pregliasco, professor of Hygiene at the State University of Milan, it is time to “extend now”, without waiting for the autumn, the possibility of undergoing the fourth dose of the anti-Covid vaccine “to all over 60”. Regarding the flop of the second booster for seniors over 80 and frail 60-79 years old, he returns to point the finger at “a wrong narrative” that has produced “a disaster” he says to beraking latest news Salute. The responsibility for this failure, he says, also falls on “who advises to wait for the new vaccines, because the current ones would no longer be needed“. Instead they serve, the expert specifies, and indeed “a broad and extensive vaccination as possible is welcome. Making the fourth dose is crucial, even lowering it the age limit currently set, because the situation requires it. An erroneous narrative, even by some family doctors – reiterates the health director of Irccs Galeazzi – has held back a vaccination that is true that it is based on the Wuhan Sars-CoV-2 strain “, the new original coronavirus,” but however, it gives a valid reinforcement to the immune defenses ”of the people most at risk of complications of the infection.