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Andalusia begins to inoculate the fourth dose of the vaccine to immunosuppressed
The Minister of Health and Families of the Junta de Andalucía, Jesús Aguirre, “has given instructions to start inoculating the fourth dose of the vaccine” against Covid-19 to the immunosuppressed population.
Specifically, “Andalusia will begin to inoculate the fourth dose to that sector of the population that received the third dose between five and six months ago,” as announced on Tuesday by the Minister of the Presidency, Public Administration and Interior and spokesman for the Andalusian Government, Elías Bendodo, at the press conference after the weekly meeting of the Governing Council.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Health and Families has detailed in a statement that the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) has already begun to vaccinate with a fourth dose of messenger RNA to people over 12 years of age belonging to group 7, made up of people with some of very high-risk conditions or pathologies of Covid-19, mostly immunosuppressed, such as solid organ transplant recipients, hematopoietic stem cell transplant (allo and autotransplant), in case of immunosuppressive treatments, recipients of Car-T therapies, people with immunodeficiencies primary, in treatment with chemotherapy or radiotherapy and people with Down syndrome who are 40 years old or older, among other conditions that will be assessed by your reference health professional.
In total, there will be 109,564 people who will receive this fourth dose, as detailed by the Ministry, which has specified that these people will be summoned directly by their reference hospitals, or, in the case of people with Down syndrome, through the health centers.
In general, it is known that these people have less protection than the general population against covid, with more possibilities of suffering from complications and more serious forms of the disease, so it is advisable to optimize their defenses against the virus with this fourth vaccine dose, according to the Board.
The fourth booster dose is indicated if five months have passed since the third dose of messenger RNA (Pfizer or Moderna).
Last January, the Public Health Commission, in which the autonomous communities and the Ministry of Health are represented, agreed that immunosuppressed people receive a fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine five months after the last dose. dose.
“People who received an additional dose of mRNA vaccine for being included in Group 7 or being people receiving treatment with immunosuppressive drugs will receive a booster dose five months after the last dose,” explained the Ministry of Health.
In this way, the Junta de Andalucía is going to inoculate the fourth dose of the vaccine to that sector of the population, according to the spokesperson, who has boasted that this autonomous community “led at the beginning, during and continues to lead the campaign of vaccination in Spain”, so that, since its inception, at the end of December 2020, it has administered more than 17.8 million doses to the population.
Similarly, Bendodo has assessed that the “sixth wave” of the pandemic has “definitely started a downward path” and “we are lighting up the definitive end of it”, which will come “when hospital admissions are at a minimum”, according to pointed out before adding, however, that “we continue to fight with the pandemic” because it is not over yet.
Along these lines, and to questions from journalists about the possibility of withdrawing the mandatory use of masks indoors, the spokesman counselor commented that “all Spaniards are looking forward to removing our masks both outdoors and indoors”, but It is necessary to act in the face of the pandemic with “responsibility”, as well as with “anticipation”, which is how the Andalusian Government has been conducting itself, as it has defended.
Bendodo has remarked in this regard that “it is highly demonstrated that the mask prevents contagion”, as, as he has abounded, is proven by the fact that in “the first winter of the pandemic”, last year, “the flu practically did not exist in Spain “, because with the use of “the mask and the hand gel it was practically eradicated that year”.
The spokesman counselor has conceded that, “if the evolution of the sixth wave of the pandemic continues in this decreasing process, it will make sense for the measures to be relaxed”, but has warned that, in any case, a possible withdrawal of the mandatory of the masks would be adopted in Andalusia within the framework of its committee of experts.
In this sense, Bendodo has defended that it has been “key” in the management of the pandemic in Andalusia that “any decision related to the pandemic has been suggested and proposed by a committee of experts”, and in this case it would also act like this, as it has concluded.