Dr. Muna Al Maslamani, Medical Director of the Communicable Disease Center at Hamad Medical Corporation, has said that a person infected with COVID-19 cannot be given the vaccine until certain period of time after recovery.
The natural immunity of the infected people lasts for a period that may be three months, she added.
Speaking in a virtual session organised yesterday by Qatar National Library (QNL) titled ‘COVID-19 Vaccines: Between Fact and Fake News’, Al Maslamani further said: “We do not know exactly how long immunity lasts, and there are people who have been infected more than once until now, and studies are still ongoing in this regard to find out how long the immunity period lasts for those infected.”
Regarding possible side-effects of vaccine, she said: “We have monitored a big number of people who received the vaccine, and they found only mild symptoms such as pain at the site of the needle or a slight rise in temperature.”
She said that the second dose (of the vaccine) is slightly stronger, but the effects do not exceed two days and then they disappear and may include fatigue, diarrhoea in some cases.
Al Maslamani warned that it is forbidden to take the vaccine for those who have a severe sensitivity from taking the vaccine. If there are significant complications such as severe pain or swelling in the eye or problem in breathing after taking the first dose then they should not take the second dose.
“Currently we advise even people who have received the vaccine to continue taking the precautionary measures of wearing a mask and other things, because the effectiveness of the vaccine is about 95 percent and therefore there is a remaining percentage that the person can be infected.”
Replying to a question about the possibility of administering vaccines from different companies to a person, she said it is not advisable.
She advised people to neglect rumours about COVID-19 as it affected even the medical staff. “So it is necessary to rely only on the news from the Ministry of Public Health or the World Health Organization and other credible sources.”
