Green light from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the third dose of vaccine against Covid-19. The EU regulatory body’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) concluded that an extra dose of Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines “can be administered to people with severely weakened immune systems, at least 28 days after the second dose”. In this case it is an ‘additional’ dose to be understood as completion of the primary vaccination cycle. As for the “booster” dose, intended as a booster to enhance the response against the coronavirus, the CHMP has evaluated for now the Pfizer / BioNTech data and concluded that “the booster dose can be considered after at least 6 months from the second dose. , for people aged 18 and over “. The evaluations are still in progress, however, for the recall with Moderna.
Israel, off to the third dose for the over 60s
by Sharon Nizza
Israel leads the way on the Green Pass and third dose
Israel was the first country to make the third Pfizer / BioNtech dose available to all. The encouraging results, arrived with the first administration to the over 60s started two months ago, had prompted Israel to expand the age groups first to the over 40s and then, at the beginning of September, to citizens aged 12 and up. Today, with the new government guidelines, it is again leading the way in redefining the rules of the Green Pass. All previously issued codes expired yesterday and a new QR code will be issued for all those who will be considered eligible: those who have received the third dose or those who have done the second in the last six months.
The Green Pass, therefore, will be revoked to all those who have not taken the third dose of the vaccine five or six months after the second. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the new government guidelines will ban about one million citizens from entering indoor venues, such as restaurants and museums, and attending public events for which green certification is mandatory. “It’s not a reward or a punishment,” he said Haaretz the director of the department of public health Nadav Davidovitch, but a public health measure based on the country’s epidemiological data: 75% of hospitalized patients with serious conditions are not vaccinated, 19% have not received the third dose and only 6% have received the booster.
Covid, the lesson of Israel: the third dose of vaccine begins to give results
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