Recommendation especially for immunocompromised persons

Urgent need to increase general vaccination readiness in countries with low rates / Medically justified benefits for vaccinated people / No restriction for vaccinated people under 30 years of age even with high incidence

Today, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended a third vaccination against the coronavirus for the BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. A third vaccination, or booster vaccination, is especially necessary for immunocompromised persons, as they are not sufficiently protected by the first vaccination. It should be administered at the earliest 28 days after the second vaccination. For persons over 18 years of age with a healthy immune system, this booster vaccination should be administered at the earliest six months after the second vaccination. This was pointed out by the health policy spokesman of the largest group in the European Parliament (EPP, Christian Democrats), Dr. med. Peter Liese: "The third vaccination is expected to benefit especially immunocompromised persons, as these persons are not optimally protected even after the second vaccination and the vaccination effect wears off after some time. It therefore makes sense to offer this group of people, in particular, a booster vaccination promptly throughout Europe. Roughly speaking, the second vaccination reduces the infection risk of 80-year-olds to that of 50-year-olds. With the third vaccination, the 80-year-olds then become a little younger in the figurative sense. This means that the risk of dying from Covid-19 is greatly minimised."

However, Liese warned during the discussion on the third vaccination that the vaccination rate in many European countries is still far too low to go calmly into the next months, especially into the winter. "In the important discussion about the booster vaccination, we must not forget that still a third of the population, including many over 16, for whom the vaccination has been approved and recommended since the end of last year, is not vaccinated. We must therefore continue to do everything together to convince people of the benefits of vaccination and to make low-threshold offers. Furthermore, I believe that vaccinated people should enjoy medically justified benefits. Complete normality should prevail in as many areas as possible if only vaccinated and recovered persons are around. In particular, I advocate assuring young people under 30 now that if they get vaccinated, they will not have to endure restrictions next winter even if incidence figures rise. For young people who have been vaccinated, the risk of falling seriously ill with Covid is so negligible that they are not in danger of ending up in intensive care. However, colleagues who work in Covid intensive care units in Germany and neighbouring countries report that many unvaccinated people are treated there. Vaccination protects above all the vaccinated person, but also the people around them, and is the key to normality," states Liese.