The new recommendation states people 65 years and above can receive an additional dose of any updated Covid-19 vaccine ‘at least four months after the previous shot’. The protection offered by any vaccine disappears quickly in senior citizens.
Written by Prerna Mittra |Updated : February 29, 2024 5:59 PM IST
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that people who are 65 years and older must get an additional dose of the current Covid-19 vaccine. According to reports, CDC’s independent vaccine advisers voted Wednesday in favour of the additional shot. CDC Director Dr Mandy Cohen endorsed it. The votes of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was 11 ‘yes’ and one ‘no’, with one person abstaining. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), all Covid-19 vaccines listed as ‘for emergency use’ or ‘prequalified’, provide protection against severe disease and death resulting from Covid infection.
What Are The Types Of Covid Vaccines?
There are several types of Covid-19 vaccines, including:
Inactivated or weakened virus vaccines, which use an inactivated or weakened version of the virus that doesn’t cause disease but still generates an immune response.
Protein-based vaccines, which contain harmless fragments of proteins or protein shells that mimic the Covid-19 virus to generate an immune response.
Viral vector vaccines that use a safe virus that cannot cause disease but serves as a vehicle to produce coronavirus proteins to generate an immune response.
RNA and DNA vaccines that are genetically engineered RNA or DNA, which create proteins that safely activate an immune response.
According to a CNN report, the new recommendation states that people 65 years and above can receive an additional dose of any updated Covid-19 vaccine ‘at least four months after the previous shot’. It has largely been understood that the protection that is offered by any vaccine disappears quickly in senior citizens because their immune systems are weak and they do not respond as well as a young person would.
CDC epidemiologist Dr Ruth Link-Gelles was quoted as telling the advisers during Wednesday’s meeting: “What the vaccines are doing now is providing an incremental benefit or an extra benefit beyond whatever benefit someone has remaining from their past infection or past vaccination, and we know that protection from past vaccination and past infection wanes.”
CDC data shows Covid-related hospitalisations have been higher for adults who are 65 years and older, as compared to those from other age groups. It is widely understood that elderly population is vulnerable, especially those who have comorbidities.
The CNN report also stated that according to the data from last year that was presented to the committee on Wednesday, of older adults in the US hospitalised with Covid, the highest percentage had no record of any vaccination against the coronavirus since the original shot. In fact, while the vaccine is recommended for everyone ages 6 months and older, data from the CDC showed people have not been getting the shots.
