Regional health authorities were waiting for this decision for Madeira to start vaccinating previously identified groups. At stake will be about 80 thousand people.
The recommendations of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for extra and booster doses of vaccines against covid-19 are already known. At issue was the administration of the third dose of the Pfizer (Comirnaty) and Moderna (Spikevax) vaccines.
In the case of Madeira, the regional health authorities were waiting for this decision to be able to proceed with the administration of the third dose to previously identified groups, namely, frontline people and people considered vulnerable (elderly people, immunocompromised people, which include, for example, people with systemic diseases and transplants, among others), covering about 80 thousand people in the Region, according to figures recently advanced by regional authorities.
In the DIÁRIO, Herberto Jesus said that the documentation is being analyzed, but “the good news is that we have vaccines in stock”. The regional director of Health remembers that vaccination will start with transplanted, immunocompromised, and autoimmune disease people.
“The remaining groups will be analyzed according to scientific evidence and the specificities of an ultra-peripheral region with a high population density and great social proximity”, stressed the doctor.
The EMA Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) concluded that an extra dose of these vaccines can be given to people with severely weakened immune systems at least 28 days after the second dose.
According to information released today by that European Agency, the recommendation follows on from studies carried out, whose evidence shows that an extra dose of these vaccines increases the ability to produce antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, especially in transplant patients or with weakened immune system.
The EMA takes the opportunity to highlight the difference between the extra dose for people with weakened immune systems and booster doses for people with normal immune systems, with each public health body in different countries issuing official recommendations on the use of doses of strengthening, taking into account emerging efficacy data and limited safety data.