ROMA. Now It’s official: the booster dose will be recalled at 4 months.
The circular of the ministry of health, in fact, sanctions the passage of the interval times from the current 5 to 4 months.
the official changeover date will be decided by Commissioner Figliuolo in the next few days.
“On the basis of the organizational needs of the vaccination campaign – reads the circular – it will indicate the effective date of implementation of the new scheduled time interval”.
The advance was decided to face the spread of infections caused by the Omicron variant.
On Omicron Israel is evaluating the clinical aspects, which according to various studies seem minor compared to the Delta: Tel Aviv has decided to suspend the decision to proceed with the fourth doses, just to verify in the next few days if the supposed reduced aggressiveness of the new variant can be faced without problems already by people with three doses of the vaccine.
To return to Italy, today the Ministry of Health has, in fact, issued the circular signed by Gianni Rezza, with an attached note also signed by Franco Locatelli, Silvio Brusaferro and Nicola Magrini, with which the third dose at 4 months.
“In light of the current evidence on the epidemiological impact related to the greater diffusion of the variant B.1.1.529 (Omicron) and on the efficacy of the booster dose in preventing symptomatic forms sustained by the aforementioned variant, in order to gradually extend the offer of the vaccine booster and in compliance with the principle of maximum precaution – the circular reads – it is represented that the administration of the booster dose in favor of the subjects for which it is recommended, with the vaccines and relative authorized dosages, will be possible after a minimum interval of at least four months (120 days) from the completion of the primary course or from the last event (to be understood as the administration of the only / last dose or diagnosis of infection in the case of subjects vaccinated before or after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to the relative indications) “.
In addition, the note of the circular also confirms “the absolute priority of putting in maximum protection in a timely manner both all those who have not yet started or completed the primary vaccination cycle, and those still waiting for the additional dose (transplanted and immunocompromised), both the most vulnerable to severe forms of covid due to age or high fragility, as well as all those for whom vaccination is mandatory and who have not yet received the booster dose on schedule “.
Additionally, the third dose or booster dose will be extended to young people aged 16-17 and frail adolescents aged 12-15, again according to the circular of the ministry.
The doses can be administered starting from December 27th.
Aifa – according to what is learned – will rule on all adolescents between 12-15 years by the month of January.
Same timing as those provided for over 18s for the booster dose to all subjects in the 16-17 age group and to subjects in the 12-15 age group with high frailty motivated by concomitant or pre-existing pathologies
From 1 February, as is well known, the duration of the green pass will also decrease, which will go from nine to six months.
In the meantime, we learn that there are over 5.6 million Italians who currently have no coverage against Covid: this is indicated by the government report on vaccines, updated this morning, on the basis of which – without calculating the population included in the 5-11 age group – 5,683,275 people who did not take the first dose.
In absolute terms, the highest number of unvaccinated is between 40-49 years (1,221,454) and in that 50-59 years (1,038,570); in percentage terms it is instead between 12-19 year olds where there is the largest share: 18.47%, which corresponds to 854,716 people out of an audience of 4,627,514. “
Yesterday the first doses were just over 40 thousand: this is a relatively low figure in itself, but day after day it erodes the number of unvaccinated people, which last month was over 6 million people.