The High Authority for Health (HAS) recommends Friday, November 19 a booster dose of vaccine against Covid-19 for those over 40, six months after the last injection because “for this age group as for the elders” that’s when “the effectiveness of the vaccine is starting to really drop”, explains Professor Dominique Le Guludec, president of the HAS college.
In addition, in a second opinion, the HAS recommends a booster shot after an infection, even if it occurs after vaccination. In fact, contamination after vaccination “resets the counters to zero in a way”. Professor Dominique Le Guludec therefore recommends a booster dose, “no matter the age”.
franceinfo: After those over 65 who can already receive the third dose, Emmanuel Macron has announced that those over 50 will be able to make an appointment in December for this booster. Why recommend this third dose for younger people?
Dominique Le Guludec: Quite simply because we have had recent data, in particular produced by Israeli teams, which shows us that from the age of 40, there is a real benefit in making this recall. This individual benefit is noted both for infections and for severe forms, that is to say hospitalizations, or even death. There is therefore a real advantage to having this booster from the age of 40.
Should we wait six months after the second injection for people over 40, as for older people?
Absolutely. It is from six months, for this age group as for the elderly, that the effectiveness of the vaccine begins to really decline. This is probably related to the Delta variant, which has changed a lot, and to the weather which decreases the effectiveness of the vaccine, as with many other vaccines. Like the first doses, we obviously recommend it with RNA vaccines, whether from Pfizer or Moderna. On the other hand, for young people under 30 years, we only recommend Pfizer. Since this is a booster, we recommend half a dose of Moderna or a full dose of Pfizer.
The United States announced Friday a third dose for all adults, including those under 40. Why not do it in France as well?
A vaccine can have two types of benefits. First of all, there are individual benefits to avoiding risk. What we want here is to protect people from severe forms of this disease, hospitalization and even death. We also want to avoid the saturation of our hospitals which can no longer take it. Then, the second benefit of vaccination is population-based, that is to say that it acts on the epidemic. It is a collective benefit. It is possible that we have this benefit but we have not yet had the demonstration. For this, we are lacking modeling studies which are underway at the Pasteur Institute and which, within about fifteen days, will allow us to tell us up to which age group it is desirable to make this recall.
The High Authority for Health publishes a second opinion on Friday evening, which concerns people infected with Covid-19 before or after their vaccination. What do you recommend?
In this crisis, data comes in as it goes. We therefore have a systematic watch to clarify things as soon as new data arrives. For people who had Covid-19 before their vaccination, we keep what we had already recommended, which is to say a dose of vaccine at six month. If they’ve had it before, that’s okay. In any case, they don’t need anything else at the moment because they are very well protected. If they had Covid-19 after the vaccination, whether it was after one or two doses, that sort of resets the counters to zero. They therefore need a dose of vaccine six months later. This dose must take place regardless of age, regardless of the time between the vaccination (s) they have had and the Covid.