The coronavirus vaccine should be stretched out for people who have already had COVID-19, France’s top health authority announced Friday.
Since December, advice has been that this group wait three months after recovery before getting offered a first dose. But in today’s statement from the Haute Autorité de Santé, that interval was extended to up to six months. The HAS also recommended that they need only one dose, rather than two.
The latest immunological research suggests that people have natural protection after COVID-19 for almost up to six months, HAS explained.
There are two exceptions, however. Those who are immunosuppressed should be vaccinated by the two-dose schedule, within three months of the onset of infection. And people who have received a first dose but then develop an infection in the days after the jab should not receive the second dose within the usual time frame, but within three to six months after infection.