JamiiTalks
JF Advocacy Team
- Aug 7, 2018
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Wataalamu wa afya kutoka Shirika la Afya Duniani wanashauri watu kutochanjwa ikiwa bado wanaugua au wana dalili za Covid-19. Jambo hili linajidhihirisha katika majadiliano kati ya Vismita Gupta Smith ambaye ni Mwandishi wa Habari na Dokta Soumumya Swaminathan.
Daktari anaeleza kuwa Mgonjwa anayeugua Covid-19 au mwenye dalili zake hapaswi kuchanjwa mpaka ahakikishe na kuthibitika kupona kabisa maradhi yake.
Aidha, katika hili Dokta Soumumya anashauri kuwa mtu aliyepona Covid-19 anashauria walau akae walau kuanzia wiki mbili au zaidi ndipo achanjwe ili kuepuka madhara yanayotokana na nguvu ya dawa iliyopo kwenye chanjo.
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Do I still need the vaccine if I have COVID-19?
Vismita Gupta-Smith: If you have COVID-19, do you still need to get vaccinated? How long should you wait before vaccination? Hello and welcome to Science in 5. I'm Vismita Gupta-Smith and these are WHO's conversations in science. We are talking to WHO's Chief Scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan. Welcome Soumya. Let's start with if I have COVID-19, do I still need to get vaccinated?
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan: After getting COVID, people do get an immune response, but this varies from person to person and it depends on whether you had a mild infection or whether you had more severe infection. And we know from many studies now that if you've had a very mild or asymptomatic infection, then many people may have very low levels of antibodies that they form. So this is why we still recommend that even if you've had COVID infection, that you should go ahead and take the vaccination when it's available to you, because the vaccine then serves as a boost to the immune system. After getting COVID, people do get an immune response, but this varies from person to person and it depends on whether you had a mild infection or whether you had more severe infection. And we know from many studies now that if you've had a very mild or asymptomatic infection, then many people may have very low levels of antibodies that they form. So this is why we still recommend that even if you've had COVID infection, that you should go ahead and take the vaccination when it's available to you, because the vaccine then serves as a boost to the immune system.
Vismita Gupta-Smith: Soumya, how long should I wait after a COVID infection to get vaccinated?
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan: Well, you can take the vaccine actually, once you've recovered from COVID. So waiting for a few weeks is recommended. You should have no symptoms at all and you should feel perfectly well when you take your vaccination. However, there are differences between countries. Some countries recommend that people wait for three months or six months till after the infection. And this is because you have natural antibodies which will keep you protected for at least that long.
And because there are shortages of vaccine supplies in many countries, they are requesting people who've had the infection to wait for three or six months. But from a scientific and a biological point of view, you can take the vaccine as soon as you've fully recovered from COVID. At this point of time, we are not sure of exactly the level of neutralizing antibodies that offer protection against an infection. And therefore, we do not recommend that individuals go and get antibody testing done in order to confirm whether they have immunity or not. We have to wait again for more data on what the correlate of protection is.
Vismita Gupta-Smith
Soumya, what have we learned so far about immunity that is induced after an infection of COVID-19 versus immunity induced by the vaccines?
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan
WHO int
