Spain recommends 5-month wait for booster dose after Covid infection

The Spanish Public Health Commission, made up of health authorities from the central government and the autonomous regions, agreed on Tuesday to modify some of its current recommendations on vaccination.

Specifically, the Commission now recommends delaying the waiting time to receive the booster dose to 5 months among adults with a complete vaccination course who have subsequently become infected with the Covid-19 virus.

This is a fundamental change from their previous recommendation: In early January, the same authorities recommended for people aged 40 to 65 to shorten the time interval between infection and the third dose to 4 weeks. That decision was highly questioned by immunologists, who warned of possible adverse effects.

Now, the Commission says that "at least four weeks" must have elapsed, although it recommends delaying the waiting time to receive the booster dose to 5 months in adults fully vaccinated and then infected. In Spain, the booster dose has already been recommended to the entire population over 18 years of age.

The change in recommendation seems to be due to criticism received from experts.

More powerful immune response

"Current evidence shows that having a SARS-CoV-2 infection after having the complete vaccination course leads to the development of a more powerful and broader immune response in terms of neutralizing other variants of the virus, compared to the immune response observed in people who had only infection or who received only two doses

"In addition, omicron infections increase the response of memory cells to viral antigens other than protein S compared with post-vaccination infections caused by the delta variant , which implies an extension of immunity", says the agreement of the Public Health Commission on the new Vaccination Strategy.

Infected children

The Public Health Commission has also issued guidelines for the vaccination of children aged 5-11. If they have overcome the Covid-19 disease, they will be given a single dose of the vaccine at least eight weeks after diagnosis of the infection.

If children become infected after the first dose, they will have to wait at least eight weeks after diagnosis of the infection to receive the second dose.