ISRAEL,US: A fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived, a large study in Israel has found.
The second booster’s protection against infection dwindled after four weeks, Israeli researchers showed in their study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday.
Protection against severe illness did not wane during the six weeks after the dose but more follow-up study was needed to evaluate its longer-term protection, the researchers said.
The study on 1.3 million people aged 60 and older looked at data from the Israeli Ministry of Health database between January 10 and March 2, when the Omicron variant was predominant.Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a national action plan to be developed by the U.S. health department to tackle the looming health crisis of long COVID, a complex, multi-symptom condition that leaves many of its sufferers unable to work.
Long COVID, which arises months after a COVID-19 infection, affects nearly 7% of U.S. adults and 2.3% of the overall population and has cost an estimated $386 billion in lost wages, savings and medical bills, according to an analysis by the Solve Long Covid Initiative, a non-profit research and advocacy group.
More than 200 symptoms – many lasting for months – have been associated with the condition, including pain, fatigue, brain fog, breathing difficulty and exhaustion after minimal amounts of physical activity.
– THE MALAY MAIL, FRANCE 24