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SPD expert Lauterbach: "The Curevac vaccine would be a massive relief"
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Michael Kappeler / dpa
After the delivery stop for the corona vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, the SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach is demanding that Germany prepare a national emergency approval for the vaccine from the Tübingen manufacturer Curevac.
"If Curevac works as well as Biontech or Moderna, which is to be expected, the vaccine should be approved and vaccinated as soon as possible," Lauterbach told SPIEGEL.
Germany should not wait for the EU Medicines Authority (EMA) to be approved: "At the EMA it often takes too long, we have already seen at Biontech."
Like the vaccines from Biontech and Moderna, that from Curevac is also an mRNA vaccine.
The results of the phase 3 study are to be published in the coming weeks.
However, several weeks could then pass before official approval by the EMA.
The EU authority took longer with Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson than regulators in Great Britain or the USA, for example.
For Germany, the Paul Ehrlich Institute could decide on an emergency approval beforehand.
“That would be correct if the effectiveness of the Curevac vaccine is high.
We are in an emergency and the Curevac vaccine would be a massive relief, ”Lauterbach said.
"And if the EU approval comes later, it can replace the German emergency approval."
According to Lauterbach, the Tübingen-based company has already pre-produced several million cans.
At least part of it could then be administered to people in Germany immediately.
"If Johnson & Johnson is vaccinated only to people over 60, we will have a problem with the under-60s."
Karl Lauterbach
Lauterbach assumes that the EU will also use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine - despite reports of sinus vein thrombosis in six US citizens who have been vaccinated so far.
However, it could be that, like AstraZeneca, this drug is mainly administered to the elderly.
The SPD expert demands that those responsible in Germany now also have to prepare for this.
“One thing is clear: if Johnson & Johnson is only vaccinated in over 60-year-olds, we will have a problem with the quantities under 60.
That will significantly delay our vaccination campaign. "
Even if Biontech and Moderna deliver all the quantities ordered on time and in full, only a good 70 million doses of these two RNA vaccines will have arrived in Germany by the beginning of July.
That is only enough for around 35 million German citizens.
The Curevac serum would then be all the more important.
Lauterbach has fewer hopes for the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine, which the state governments of Bavaria and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania want to procure.
"Sputnik could show side effects similar to AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson," said the politician and doctor who recently had himself vaccinated with AstraZeneca.
All three are vector vaccines.
And: "The probability that it is a vector problem is relatively high."
In view of the recent delay in the vaccination campaign, Lauterbach renewed his request to extend the period between the first and second vaccination dose to twelve weeks - in order to give as many people as possible a certain protection through the first injection.
"Data from Great Britain clearly show that the number of new infections and the number of serious illnesses drops dramatically after the first dose," said the 58-year-old.
"We now need pragmatic solutions that will save as many lives as possible."
