STIKO recommends booster vaccinations after three months

D.he Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) recommends booster vaccinations because of the omicron variant of the coronavirus after at least three instead of six months. The recommendation to shorten the vaccination interval applies immediately to adults, the panel announced on Tuesday. It aims to improve protection against severe diseases caused by Omikron in the population and to reduce the transmission of the variant. It is to be expected that Omikron will determine the infection process in this country “within a very short time”.

Older and previously ill people should therefore be given preference because of their higher Covid 19 risk. The two mRNA vaccines that are used for boosting (Comirnaty from Biontech / Pfizer and Spikevax from Moderna) are “completely equivalent in terms of their effectiveness”.

Current data indicate a significantly reduced vaccination protection after the basic immunization compared to the Omikron variant, explained the Stiko. This decreases significantly after three to four months. After a booster vaccination, the protective effect against symptomatic infection with the Omikron variant increases again significantly. It can currently be assumed that protection against severe disease will also increase. Nothing can currently be said about the duration of the protection.

The STIKO had previously recommended that a booster vaccination should be given every six months after the last vaccine dose of the basic vaccination. A shortening of the vaccination interval to five months could “be considered in individual cases or if sufficient capacities are available”. For immunocompromised people, an even shorter interval between the second and third dose was possible. In contrast to some earlier updates, the change made on Tuesday is already a final STIKO recommendation.

Experts: boosting is not enough

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recently announced that booster vaccinations can be given after just three months. Biontech founder Uğur Şahin had also spoken out in favor of an earlier third vaccination because of Omikron. In the state of Berlin, the vaccination interval, which had been shortened to three months, was announced on Monday in view of an expected STIKO recommendation.

The RKI has assessed the risk for people twice vaccinated and recovered because of Omikron as high since Monday. For those who have not been vaccinated, it remains “very high”. For people with a booster vaccination, the institute spoke of a moderate risk. Scientists have already documented Omicron infections in people who had already received a booster vaccination.

Experts emphasize that boosting alone against the strongly mutated Omicron variant should not be sufficient. “A massive expansion of the booster campaign can slow down the dynamics and thus reduce the extent, but not prevent it,” said a statement by the Federal Government’s new Expert Council, which also includes STIKO chairman Thomas Mertens. According to mathematical models, an overload of the health system and the restriction of the critical infrastructure can only “be contained with strong contact reductions”. The RKI made a similar statement on Tuesday.

In contrast, immunologists had judged the boosting of immunologically healthy people to be of little use after an even shorter period of time, around four weeks. The booster then works much worse because certain immunological processes are not yet completed.