DThe Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) recommends that all children between the ages of five and eleven be vaccinated once against the coronavirus. This emerges from a new assessment by STIKO, which it published on Tuesday. The background to the recommendation to only give one vaccination at first is the assumption that the majority of children in Germany have already been infected with the corona virus.
The commission recommends a so-called basic immunization, which consists of two vaccinations, only for those children in whose environment there are close contacts with a high risk of a severe course of Covid 19, who “cannot be reliably protected” by a vaccination. These can be patients, for example, whose immune system has been artificially weakened by medication. For children with pre-existing conditions where the immune system is weakened, the STIKO recommends a booster vaccination in addition to the basic immunization.
So far, there has been no general Covid-19 vaccination recommendation for healthy children between the ages of five and eleven. However, parents were free to have their children vaccinated after consulting a doctor. According to the STIKO, vaccination for small children should preferably be carried out with the mRNA vaccine from BioNTech and Pfizer for this age group, alternatively a child dose of Moderna from the age of six is also possible.
The vaccination should be administered no earlier than three months after infection. STIKO estimates that the proportion of five to eleven year olds who have had at least one contact with the SARS-CoV-2 antigen was 77.5 percent at the end of March. Even children in whom no infection has yet been detected should initially only receive one dose.
According to the Robert Koch Institute, around 22 percent of five to eleven year olds in Germany have been vaccinated against Corona at least once. In Saxony, the rate is the lowest nationwide at 7.6 percent, and the highest in Schleswig-Holstein at 30.5 percent. Almost every fifth child in this age group has already received the second vaccination, i.e. is basic immunized against the corona virus. The nationwide average is 19.6 percent. Across all age groups, the rate of basic immunization is 75.9 percent. Almost 60 percent of citizens have received a first booster vaccination, a little less than six percent a second booster.