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COVID-19

‘There will be a third Covid vaccine for people in Spain’: Health Minister

Spain’s Health Minister on Friday said that “everything points” to her government’s decision to administer a “third reinforcement vaccine” against Covid-19, and potentially even more vaccinations every year from now on. 

Published: 23 July 2021 13:13 CEST
'There will be a third Covid vaccine for people in Spain': Health Minister
Spain's Health Minister also addressed the "controversial" matter of Covid vaccines for young children. Photo: Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA / AFP

Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darias believes 2021 won’t mark the end of Covid-19 vaccinations in the country.

When asked on Friday morning on Spanish radio station Onda Cero if it would be necessary to carry on vaccinating past the two doses, she responded that “everything pointed” to a third vaccine and potentially one every year. 

“Everything seems to indicate that it will be necessary to have a third vaccine… “or booster, as it is called,” Darias explained. 

“In fact, Spain has already signed a contract with Pfizer and Moderna for the delivery of vaccines in 2022 and 2023,” deals worth €4 billion. 

Darias added that “what has to be determined is when”, referring to when this third, and potentially future vaccinations, would be administered.

Spain has fully vaccinated 53 percent of its population up to now, reaching its target of 25 million doses administered in July and with the objective of herd immunity for late August still in sight. 

However, the country’s fortnightly infection rate has skyrocketed to 661 cases per 100,000 people in a month, and the rate is three times that among largely unvaccinated people in their twenties. 

Spain’s Health Minister Carolina Darias poses during her handover ceremony in January. Photo: Chema Moya/POOL/AFP)

“Once we get to the target of 70 percent vaccinated, we need to carry on vaccinating people until we get as close as possible to 100 percent of the population,” Darias expressed.

“We need to vaccinate the whole of humanity because nobody will be safe until we all are, hence why our government has committed to donating 22.5 million doses, 7 million to Latin America.” 

Spain’s Health Minister admitted that vaccines for young children remained a “controversial” subject for the public, even though inoculations in over 12s have been approved by the European Medicines Agency and Spain has followed suit.

“It’s true that young children are generally not transferrers of the virus but if we want to achieve full immunity we should be able to vaccinate them.

“We’ll broach the subject calmly and use scientific evidence,” the minister, originally from the island of Gran Canaria, told Onda Cero.

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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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