What are the advantages of obtaining a third dose of the emerging coronavirus “Covid-19” vaccine? What are the cases most in need of this dose? What are the negatives in return? What is the position of the World Health Organization? The answers are in this comprehensive report.

During the past period, many countries began plans to give booster doses of the Corona vaccine, for example, the Jordanian Ministry of Health begins today, Sunday, giving a third booster dose to people with immunodeficiency.

The ministry indicated - in a statement - that people who want to receive the booster dose must bring evidence of diseases.

Those eligible for the booster dose include cancer patients on treatment, organ transplant patients, stem cell transplant patients within the past two years, patients with advanced or untreated HIV infection, patients taking large amounts of cortisone therapy or immunosuppressive drugs, and patients on dialysis Kidney, autoimmune diseases such as pneumonia, lupus fever, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes, Guillain-Barré syndrome, as well as some genetic diseases such as Down syndrome.

In Germany, many states have begun offering to give a third dose of corona vaccination to people in need of care, who are over 80 years old and have weak immunity, if at least 6 months have passed since the last dose they took;

Because the effect of the vaccine begins to decline significantly after this period.

In Italy, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said last Thursday that the government intends to start giving a third dose of vaccines against Covid-19 later this month to people most at risk.

"We will start vaccinating the most vulnerable people with a third dose in September," Speranza told reporters, standing next to Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

What are the pros of getting a third dose?

1- It helps those with weak immunity

According to preliminary data from the Octave trial, nearly all immunosuppressed people had an immune response after two doses, but about 40% of people had low antibody levels, although it wasn't clear Yet to what extent this may affect their protection from the Corona virus, according to a report in the BMJ medical journal.

Accordingly, the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) has recommended that people with severely compromised immune systems get a third dose of the vaccine, as part of the basic COVID-19 vaccination schedule.

2- It may help raise immunity after its decline

According to research data, it appears that the immunity built up by vaccines declines with time;

According to researchers in Britain, the protection provided by receiving two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines begins to wear off within 6 months, indicating the need to receive booster doses.

An analysis of data collected by the “Zoe Covid” application company concluded that the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine decreased from 88% a month after receiving the second dose to 74% after 5 to 6 months.

For AstraZeneca, the efficacy decreased from 77% to 67% after 4 to 5 months.

The study was based on data from more than one million users of the application, and compared the injuries reported by the owners of those who received the vaccine and the injuries among a group that did not receive the vaccine.

3- Helping tackle the new strains of the Corona virus

With the emergence of new strains of corona, such as "Delta" and "Mo", there is a fear that the decline in immunity over time will reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine, and therefore the booster dose may help stimulate immunity against the new strains.

Does the third dose of the vaccine have to be the same type as the first two doses?

If possible, yes.

This is according to what Professor Emily Landon told the University of Chicago website.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that the booster doses match the original mRNA vaccines people received earlier this year.

This subsequent dose should be given at least 28 days after the second dose of the vaccine.

And if you can never find a matching dose of the vaccine, it will be possible to get another type of vaccine.

What are the downsides to getting a third dose?

There is one problem, and it is related to countries and not to the person receiving the vaccine;

The Scientific Health Organization fears that countries starting to give a third dose of the Corona vaccine to their citizens will exacerbate the inequity in the distribution of vaccines.

"Although hundreds of millions of people are waiting for their first dose, some rich countries have moved to provide boosters," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the COVID-19 pandemic briefing on August 4th.

"To date, more than 4 billion doses of vaccine have been used in the world. More than 80% of these doses have been accounted for by high-income and upper-middle-income countries, even if the population of these countries represents less than half of the world's population," he added.

"I understand the interest of all governments in protecting their people from the delta mutator, but we cannot accept that countries that have used the most global supplies of vaccines continue to use more of them, while the world's most vulnerable people remain unprotected," he said.

"In late May, I called for global support for the aggressive effort towards the September target, in order to enable every country to vaccinate at least 10% of its population by the end of September," Adhanom said.

He added that this was not achieved, as high-income countries used - until the date of the briefing - about 100 doses per 100 people, low-income countries could not use more than 1.5 doses per 100 people, due to lack of supplies.

Adhanom called at the time to stop the use of booster doses until at least the end of September, to enable at least 10% of the population of each country to receive the vaccination.