By Nathan Allen and Inti Landauro
MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday that people under 55 without serious health complications who had previously contracted coronavirus will have to wait six months from diagnosis before receiving the vaccine.
The provisional measure, which appears to be unique in Europe, will be applied to vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford University and AstraZeneca currently being distributed in Spain.
Justifying the decision to prioritize those without a history of COVID-19, the ministry said the six-month reinfection was “exceptional”.
A large British study published last week found 99% of participants who had tested positive antibodies previously for three months, while 88% still had them after six months.
“If the vaccine is lacking and they are confident that they can identify previously infected people reliably and safely, there is some reason for that,” said Eleanor Riley, professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
People over 55 or those with health risks that make them vulnerable to reinfection would be exempt from the delay, the ministry said.
So far, health professionals are the only people under the age of 55 to be vaccinated, according to Spain’s vaccination strategy.
With its third wave retreating, Spain’s 14-day infection rate dropped to 493 cases per 100,000 people on Tuesday, from about 900 just two weeks ago.
The death toll rose from 643 to 63,704, while the Ministry of Health reported 18,114 infections, bringing the overall count to 3.02 million.
As officials begin to inoculate a wider part of society with the recently approved AstraZeneca injection, Madrid’s regional government said it would convert stadiums and other large sites into vaccination centers.
Elsewhere in Europe, several Italian epidemiologists have said it is useless to vaccinate those who have already been infected, but Rome has made no decision about administering jabs to recovering patients.
France’s public health agency believes there is no need to inoculate people who have developed a symptomatic form of the disease, although these patients may still have an injection three months after the onset of symptoms. And the Dutch authorities still recommend receiving an injection after contracting the disease, at least four weeks after the symptoms.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro, Emma Pinedo and Nathan Allen in Madrid and Kate Kelland in London; Additional reporting by Emilio Parodi and Richard Lough; Editing by Alex Richardson and Steve Orlofsky)