Published 07:30 IST, February 13th 2021
France recommends 'one-shot vaccine'' for people who recovered from COVID-19
France public health authority said that people that recovered a coronavirus infection have already developed a robust immune system that provides protection.
France on February 12 recommended that those, who have already recovered a COVID-19 infection, should be administered a single vaccine shot, becoming the first country to issue such an advisory. In an official statement, France's public health authority said that people that recovered a coronavirus infection have already developed a robust immune system that provides protection, similar to a vaccine. And hence, it added, one-shot sufficed. Furthermore, it recommended that the recovered population must get the jab three to six months later after they have successfully beaten the disease and have tested negative. EU, however, still administered two doses regime, owing to the greater immunity that it provided, which it said was based on the proven results from the vaccines’ clinical trials.
As France was reported to have administered at least one shot to its 2.1 million people, French health authorities rolled out the new advisory saying that no country in the world has clearly positioned itself in terms of a sole vaccination dose for people. France’s decision was based on research that indicated, patients who recovered from the SARS-CoV-2 virus built an immunity to reinfection, which can last for as long as 8 months.
Immune system 'remembers virus'
According to a study published in the journal Science, a professor at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology, Shane Crotty, said that a person that recovered from COVID-19 was found to have all four essential components in their immune system—antibodies, memory B cells, helper T cells, and killer T cells that persisted for several months. According to the scientists at Rockefeller University in the US, the recovered patients’ immune system tends to ‘remember the virus’ and continues to improve the quality of antibodies long after the recovery.
Earlier, however, the French President appeared at odds with the vaccine’s efficacy after he made a public statement that the AstraZeneca jabs, produced by the Anglo-Swedish firm, was "quasi ineffective for people over 65.” At a state briefing, Emmanuel Macron told French reporters, that the AstraZeneca vaccine “doesn’t work the way we were expecting it to”. This was shortly followed by a separate advisory about the age restriction on the vaccine for 55 year old and above, which the French authorities alleged, was done due to ‘lack of data.’
Updated 07:30 IST, February 13th 2021