Third dose for severely immunosuppressed people gets green light
At the moment, there is no solid data on the application of the recall dose in the general population
MadridThe Public Health Commission, made up of the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities, has approved this Tuesday the administration of a third dose of the vaccine against the coronavirus to people with severe immunosuppression. These are cases in which there is a high risk of an inadequate immune response in the conventional vaccination schedule. Specifically, this additional dose is designed to complete the vaccination schedule for people with solid organ transplants, recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplants and those who are being treated with anti-CD20 drugs.
The vaccines committee had already been studying this possibility for days and recommended the Public Health Commission to approve this measure. This Wednesday the Interterritorial Health Council will be informed about this, but Tuesday's approval is already considered final. Now it will have to be the autonomous communities that proceed to implement it.
As for the procedure, the inoculation of the third dose will have to be done at least 28 days after receiving the previous one. In the case of people being treated with anti-CD20 drugs, which include rituximab or veltuzumab, among others, it will have to be administered six months after the end of therapy, the Ministry of Health has reported. In all cases, the vaccine used will be mRNA, that is, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine, preferably the same one used in the previous doses.
Other cases and general population
The third dose for people with other types of immunosuppression is still under study. The Vaccine Conference and the Technical Working Group on Vaccination continue to review the evidence of the benefits that the additional dose may have for these cases, which could be patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy or those with underlying pathologies that require immunosuppressive treatment.
As for the general population, the two entities have pointed out that there is no solid data available to apply a booster dose. The European Medicines Agency already reported last week that it did not see activating the third dose for the general population as an "urgent" matter, given that the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) said in a report that there is insufficient evidence on the suitability of booster injections booster shots.
