The Greek government has decided to offer a third dose of a vaccine against Covid-19 to people over 60 or otherwise at greater risk from the novel coronavirus, based on the latest scientific evidence showing that a booster shot is needed to bolster immunity in these groups, ANA reports.
The reasoning behind the decision was outlined to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency on Sunday by a member of the government’s health experts’ committee and National Vaccination Committee, Vana Papaevangelou.
“Scientists have singled out the third dose for the immunosuppressed and very elderly – over 80 – where a third dose appears not to be a booster but a reinforcement of immunity as they did not respond well to the first doses due to immunosuppression and age,” she noted.
There was also a necessity for a third dose for those over 60, she added since the data showed that the intensity of the immune response was affected by age.
“We have announced that those over 60 will need a third dose of the vaccine because laboratory studies and epidemiological figures show that the older a person is and the greater the period that has elapsed since their second dose – at least six months – the higher the chances that they will be infected with the virus,” she pointed out while clarifying that the chances of serious illness and death were low.
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