https://www.vaccinebox.com/covid-vaccination-guidelines-after-being-covid/
COVID vaccination guidelines after being COVID positive
May 13, 2021 by Vaccinebox
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It feels like you have won a battle for life after you complete your quarantine period and feel absolutely fine. One question that boggles everyone’s mind is that whether vaccination is required after recovery or not? It is absolutely true that a COVID patient develops natural adaptive immunity after being cured but still that’s not enough in long term!! Natural antibodies level starts to decline after 6 months. Vaccination gives you a sustainable and specific immunity against the COVID virus and it is bound to give you boosted protection against severe disease.
When should one take the vaccine after being infected with COVID?
COVID patients should at least wait for 4–8 weeks after recovery or quarantine period to get the shot as there are naturally made antibodies in the body due to infection. The immune system is active and is still responding to the infection. Vaccine before 4 weeks will be the waste of that dose. The body should be allowed to build maximum natural immunity before taking the vaccine to further boost the immune response. Delaying the dose will also give an opportunity to uninfected people to get their first dose. WHO recommends waiting up to 6 months as evidence has proved that infection provides reasonable protection. However, the Ministry Of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) suggests that individuals recovering from COVID-19 should wait at least 2–8 weeks after the 14 day recovery period
National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) has recently stated that those having laboratory tests proven SARS-CoV-2 illness should defer COVID-19 vaccination for six months after recovery.
When should Covid-19 patient take the vaccine if Monoclonal antibodies treatment was being given?
Monoclonal antibodies are man-made proteins that act like human antibodies in the immune system, so it is preferable to wait for 90 days after recovering from the infection. The level of antibodies will decline after that period and the vaccine will successfully be able to develop a robust immune response then.
What time should you take the second dose of the vaccine if you got Covid after the first dose of the vaccine?
The second dose has to be taken after recovering completely. Wait for 2–6 weeks after the recovery period to get the vaccine. A complete schedule has to follow for the vaccine and a gap should be maintained according to the vaccine brand. If Covaxin was taken, the gap should be at least 28–42 days. If Covishield was taken, the gap can be 42–56 days. New guidelines suggest the gap between the Covishield vaccine be increased to 12–16 weeks for effective immunity and better accessibility of vaccines to all.
Do you require to take the first dose again if you got Covid positive after the first dose and missed the vaccination date?
Delaying the vaccination for the short term due to disease does not result in any loss of protection or effectiveness of the vaccine in a short term. Delay for few weeks or even months due to the unavailability of vaccines does not warrant repetition of the first dose. Just keep following the COVID safety norms and healthy lifestyle to avoid reinfection.
I got infected even if I took the vaccine? Does vaccine really work?
Vaccinated people do get infected even after getting vaccinated. No vaccine provides 100% immunity. In the majority of cases, mild or moderate disease has occurred in vaccinated individuals depending on when the exposure happened after vaccination. If exposure occurs within one to three weeks right after receiving the first dose, the vaccine will not be of much help in preventing the course of infection and a moderate disease might occur. But, if 3 weeks have passed since the first dose and then the infection occurs, a mild disease might only occur.
Do Covid survivors need only one dose of vaccine?
Immunizations based on vaccines generate immunity based on the “prime-boost model”. This means that immune cells in our body need to be primed by the antigen or disease-causing organism either virus or bacteria in order to, later on, recognize it as foreign and design the specific antibodies to kill it. This priming is generally done by the first dose of the vaccine. Once this immunity task is assigned to cells, a second dose activates the immune system and elicits the required immune response. In event of infection, the body gets naturally primed to take on the further infection and only a single dose may be sufficient for a younger healthy person who recovered completely from COVID-19. This doesn’t mean that everyone who had COVID once can skip the second dose of the vaccine. The decision also depends on the age and health status of a person. If the patient needed hospitalization, took steroids, or was old, his immune response to the disease might not have been robust so as to avoid the second dose to bolster his protection. Natural immunity may not protect against the variants. Vaccines may have a better chance. So, it is advisable to take two doses of the vaccine even after COVID if you haven’t taken any dose earlier. Also, complete the doses if you have COVID between the doses.
