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PHOTO: Reuters
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Elderly people with multiple chronic diseases and immunosuppression are more likely to become infected with the coronavirus and develop a severe form of Kovid-19 even after vaccination, according to an Israeli study cited by BTA. “Overall, we can conclude that these are not healthy people,” study leader Prof. Tal Brosch, who is the director of the infectious diseases department at Samson Asuta University Hospital in Ashdod, told the Jerusalem Post. “Almost all have comorbidities: heart, lung, kidney disease, dementia, cancer or other common diseases.”
A small proportion of those vaccinated against Kovid-19 become infected, and a small percentage of them go to hospital. This is the so-called “breakthrough” infection. Prof. Brosch and his team are studying the cases of 152 immunized patients from seventeen hospitals who developed Covid-19 more than seven days after the second dose and had to be hospitalized before the end of April.
The group is not large, as this rarely happens. The effectiveness of the vaccine used in Israel against the standard variant of the virus is 97-98 percent and shows almost the same effectiveness against the Delta variant. So far, despite the sharp jump in the number of newly infected people in the country, the number of severe cases is slowly increasing.
The results showed that 71 percent of patients in the study group had hypertension, 48 percent – diabetes, 27 percent – congestive heart failure, 24 percent – chronic kidney disease, 24 percent – chronic lung disease, 19 percent – dementia, and 24 percent – crab. Only 6 percent had no concomitant disease, but 40 percent had a compromised immune system. “If the immune system doesn’t work well, the risk of not developing a defense through the vaccine is higher,” says Brosch.
Patients were hospitalized an average of 40 days after the second dose of vaccine, with a mean age of 71 years.
The study was conducted when the Alpha variant was active in Israel, but the conclusions from it are most likely valid in the current situation of dominance of the Delta variant, explains Prof. Brosch. According to him, the Delta variant seems to overcome the vaccine more often than its predecessor, but it is not yet clear whether it causes a more serious disease.
The important message to society is that older people with co-morbidities or immunosuppression should not assume that they are well protected from vaccines and should take care of themselves when the prevalence of the virus is high, the doctor said.
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