The fifth dose of vaccine against Covid is recommended for Over 80s and the frail, but will also be available for Over 60s on request: this is established by a circular from the Ministry of Health, signed by the Director General of Prevention, Giovanni Rezza.
"In order to achieve further consolidation of the protection conferred by vaccines against severe forms of Covid-19, and in compliance with the principle of maximum precaution", reads a joint note from the dicastery with the Higher Health Council, Agenzia del Aifa drug and the Higher Institute of Health, "an additional booster dose with bivalent mRna vaccine is recommended, in favor of people aged 80 or over, guests of residential facilities for the elderly and people aged over or equal to 60 years with frailty motivated by concomitant / pre-existing pathologies, who have already received a second booster dose with monovalent vaccine, once at least 120 days have elapsed from the same or from the last Sars-CoV-2 infection ".
The update of the indications on the booster with bivalent vaccines in the context of the vaccination campaign is motivated by the current epidemiological context which "presents an increased circulation of the Sars-CoV-2 virus contextual to the increase in the transmissibility index above the epidemic threshold ", is explained.