MADRID: Wearing a facial mask and social distance is part of the Moskal Magdalene life long before Coronavirus a hit pandemic.
The 36-year-old Madrid population has a double lung transplant in 2008 to overcome its cystic fibrosis, genetic disorders in which thick secretions accumulate in the lungs, so it is difficult to breathe.
“Suddenly everyone lived my reality,” he said in a soft voice, looking back in a hurry to adopt anti-covid-19 prevention measures early last year.
Now, like the launch of the Covid-19 vaccine gets momentum, many people return to the fitness center, cinema, and sports venues after more than one year restrictions on-off.
But for Moskal and thousands like him in Spain, world leaders in organ transplants, the return of free worries to normal life still feels far away.
The immune response of transplant patients is intentionally pressed with daily drugs to prevent the body from attacking new organs.
They also did not respond to vaccines in the same way as others.
So, warning Moskal, recipients of organ donations will only be able to relax when “100 percent of the population is vaccinated”.
“If I’m here, it’s because I always look after myself.
If I’m not careful, it will end badly,” Moskal, who was trained in law and was happy to work at home, told AFP.
Twenty-five years Andrea Lopez Robles, a student who lives in the Spanish capital and received a liver transplant that saved the lives when he was only two, also felt he could not disappoint him.
“Until everyone is vaccinated, I don’t think I can say ‘goodbye’ for all precautions,” he said in an interview with AFP.
He hasn’t taken public transportation since the start of the Pandemic in Spain in March 2020 and avoided as many large meetings as possible.
“I almost died.
I can’t do something stupid,” Robles added, hand sanitiser was attached to his handbag and only lowered the high FFP2 FFP face mask to drink his fruit juice.
“I realized that I had to take care of myself that I wasn’t like anyone else.” For more than three decades, Spain has done more organ transplants than anywhere else in the world.
It has a very advanced network, with a transplant coordinator present in every hospital.
More than 116,000 transplants have been carried out since 1989, in what is a source of national pride.
There are 48.9 organ donors per million residents in Spain in 2019, the highest number ever.
It was compared with 29.4 million in France and 36.1 million in the United States, according to the national transplant organization of the Spanish Ministry of Health.
However, patients with organ transplants that have been vaccinated against Covid-19 cannot be sure of their immunity.
A study published in May by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that only 54 percent of the 658 transplant patients received two doses of modern vaccines or Pfizer produced Covid-19 antibodies.
Moskal was immunized against Covid-19 in May but did not know whether his body had produced an antibody intended by a vaccine to trigger.
“A significant percentage of transplant patients did not have antibodies or defensive cells after being vaccinated against Coronavirus,” said Estela Paz Artal, Head of the Immunology Department at Madrid Hospital 12 de Octubre.
But he said that it was important for transplant patients to be vaccinated because “but weak” their immune response was, this was “preferred than vaccination”.
Covid-19 mortality rate for transplant patients is in 21 percent, compared to around 2.0 percent for the general population, the national transplant organization said.
Most transplant patients are very aware of the risk.
The retirement of Rafael Garcia engineer, 45, said about 100 pills he had to take every day since having a double lung transplant five years ago reminded him that he had to take care of himself “every day, every hour”.
He said he led the “monastery life” with his wife, lived as if he was not vaccinated, even though he had been.
He buys groceries online and wears a face mask outside even if no one is closest.
Under the Spanish Covid-19 vaccination program, transplant patients were given priority and health authority Mulling gave them a booster shot.
“We must look for alternatives and increase the effectiveness of vaccines for this group of patients,” said the National Transplant Organization Head, Beatriz Dominguez-gil.
“For now, they must maintain self-protection measures.
Like other people, but in their case even more,” he added.