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Evidence of the third vaccination
Photo: Wolfgang Kumm / dpa
The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) recommends people with a weakened immune system to be vaccinated against the coronavirus again.
However, the Stiko refrained from generally recommending re-vaccination to senior citizens.
In addition, there is currently no recommendation by age group, said Stiko chairman Thomas Mertens, confirming a report by the newspapers of the Funke media group (Friday).
According to Mertens, the current Stiko recommendation is about people with immune deficiencies or diseases in which the immune system is downregulated by drugs, such as autoimmune diseases or after a transplant. But it should be differentiated within these groups depending on the extent of the immunosuppression, said Mertens of the news agency dpa. The timing of the vaccination should depend on how much the immune system is weakened.
"When a booster vaccination will be necessary for non-risk patients is scientifically much more difficult to answer," said Mertens. "The decision on a recommendation will at least take some time." Stiko member Fred Zepp added that the vaccination commission, with the support of the Robert Koch Institute, will examine how often and how pronounced Covid-19 diseases currently occur in older age groups. "If it turns out that vaccination breakthroughs occur more frequently from a certain age, there could also be a general vaccination recommendation from around 60, 70 or 80 years of age," Zepp told the Funke newspapers.
At the beginning of August, the conference of health ministers had spoken out in favor of booster vaccinations. The third Piks for seniors and immunocompromised people has been possible nationwide for around three weeks without a Stiko recommendation. Fully vaccinated people receive another dose of an approved vaccine after around six months. This is to strengthen your immune system again against Sars-CoV-2 viruses. Around 486,500 German citizens have already accepted this offer. Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) defended this strategy at the beginning of September. He said he didn't want to wait for people to die again in the nursing homes.
Eugen Brysch, board member of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, criticizes the advance of the federal states. "We had to wait for the Stiko's vote," he told the dpa news agency. He is still no friend of unchecked booster mass vaccinations. "The immune status of every person can be checked with a blood test with a view to SARS-CoV-2," he said. The T-cell values can be used to read how well a person is protected - and whether they already need another vaccination. In contrast to the publicly funded PCR tests, there is still no comprehensive laboratory system for this immune query. If that were the case, such investigations are now available at the price of a PCR test, said Brysch.
The Charité infectiologist Leif Erik Sander considers booster vaccinations for the elderly as well as for people from other risk groups to be medically sensible. In August he published interim results of his research group. According to Sander, these confirmed that the immune response of older people to the vaccination decreased significantly more than that of younger people.
Carsten Watzl, immunologist at the Leibniz Institute for Labor Research at the Technical University of Dortmund, sees the situation as differentiated.
“That makes a lot of sense from an immunological point of view.
The immune system significantly improves the immune response to a pathogen every time it comes into contact, ”he said recently.
Israeli studies also recently showed such effects in seniors.
However, these vaccinations presented problems both ethically and virologically, added Watzl.
“There is still a shortage of vaccines around the world.
More people die as a result of this than would be saved in this country by a third vaccination. «For other experts, with a view to the infection rate, it is also more important to vaccinate young and healthy people in Germany who have not yet received a vaccine.
kha / dpa
