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VACCINE

Spain’s elderly will be first in line for Covid-19 vaccine

Elderly care home residents and those looking after them will be first to be vaccinated when Spain begins its national immunisation programme early next year, the government said Tuesday.

Published: 24 November 2020 17:28 CET
Spain's elderly will be first in line for Covid-19 vaccine
Photo: AFP

Assuming the vaccines are approved and stocks are available, the Spanish government will begin vaccinating its 47 million population in January, with healthcare workers and other elderly people next in line.

Under terms of an ambitious plan presented to the cabinet on Tuesday, Spain is aiming to have a large part of the population immunised by mid-2021.   

The plans were unveiled after several vaccine makers announced breakthroughs in the hunt for a treatment to halt a pandemic that has claimed nearly 1.4 million lives across the globe.

“In the first stage, we will focus on the most vulnerable, a group of around 2.5 million people,” Health Minister Salvador Illa told a news conference.

“It will be a free vaccine which will be administered through the national health system” and receiving it “will be voluntary”, he said.   

Draft figures compiled by a working group of central and regional government officials and social actors suggest more than 20,000 people died in homes for the elderly and the disabled between March and June.

The figures, which were published by El Pais daily, include deaths among those who had tested positive and those showing symptoms compatible with Covid-19.

In some regions such as Madrid, investigators are looking into legal complaints about mismanagement in certain homes which have continued to suffer deaths in the second wave.

Illa said Spain would have enough doses of the vaccine to ensure the immunisation of its entire population in 2021.

Spain has been badly hit by the pandemic, suffering nearly 1.6 million confirmed infections — the EU's second highest number after France — and more than 43,000 deaths, although that figure only counts those who formally tested positive for Covid-19.

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COVID-19

Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

Sweden's Public Health Agency is recommending that those above the age of 80 should receive two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine a year, once in the spring and once in the autumn, as it shifts towards a longer-term strategy for the virus.

Published: 23 December 2022 10:53 CET
Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

In a new recommendation, the agency said that those living in elderly care centres, and those above the age of 80 should from March 1st receive two vaccinations a year, with a six month gap between doses. 

“Elderly people develop a somewhat worse immune defence after vaccination and immunity wanes faster than among young and healthy people,” the agency said. “That means that elderly people have a greater need of booster doses than younger ones. The Swedish Public Health Agency considers, based on the current knowledge, that it will be important even going into the future to have booster doses for the elderly and people in risk groups.” 

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People between the ages of 65 and 79 years old and young people with risk factors, such as obesity, diabetes, poor kidney function or high blood pressure, are recommended to take one additional dose per year.

The new vaccination recommendation, which will start to apply from March 1st next year, is only for 2023, Johanna Rubin, the investigator in the agency’s vaccination programme unit, explained. 

She said too much was still unclear about how long protection from vaccination lasted to institute a permanent programme.

“This recommendation applies to 2023. There is not really an abundance of data on how long protection lasts after a booster dose, of course, but this is what we can say for now,” she told the TT newswire. 

It was likely, however, that elderly people would end up being given an annual dose to protect them from any new variants, as has long been the case with influenza.

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