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Vaccinations in a pop-up vaccination center against the coronavirus
Photo: Daniel Jüptner / 7aktuell / imago images
Every vaccination given means a piece of freedom.
After months of deprivation, the long-awaited positive effect of the immunizations is now occurring.
Not for everyone alike, however.
Most recently, the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) had drawn attention to the fact that a number of people had not built up effective corona immune protection despite a complete vaccination.
There are now several studies that show that vaccination against Covid-19 does not work as well in people whose immune system is slowed down with medication as it does in others, according to Stiko chairman Thomas Mertens.
With them, the immune response is worse or fails completely.
Mertens emphasized that one does not speak of individual cases, although it is not yet known how many people are affected and how severely.
Some clinical pictures require the use of such agents, including people who have had an organ transplant, but also cancer patients or certain rheumatism patients.
Effectiveness reductions vary
The active ingredients are also used in multiple sclerosis.
This neurological disease alone, in which the own immune system is directed against the body, is estimated to affect up to 250,000 people in Germany.
Other vaccination campaigns also found that the immune response as a result of vaccinations is lower in previous illnesses than in healthy patients.
A larger analysis from 2013 showed that the reduced effectiveness of the vaccines fluctuated greatly depending on the immunosuppressants used.
Which agents lead to which effects after the corona vaccination is currently being investigated in further studies, according to Stiko boss Mertens.
Vaccination is still advisable for affected patients, experts assure.
The Stiko had classified patients with autoimmune diseases as risk groups and prioritized them accordingly, as a severe course of Covid-19 is to be expected in them.
A small study from March came to the conclusion that mRNA vaccines are unproblematic in patients who are given immunosuppressive agents and that most of them also develop antibodies against Sars-CoV-2.
Two strategies are currently being pursued for immunosuppressed people: They should continue to be well protected after the vaccinations, according to Mertens
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order to avoid infection.
Masks and distance rules still apply anyway - but especially here.
And for this it is advisable that family members and other social contacts of those affected also get vaccinated as far as possible in order to reduce the risk of infection in the environment as much as possible.
Experts speak of the cocoon strategy.
For this purpose, in a second step, the two vaccinations for such patients will soon be reinforced by a third.
This is also recommended, for example, by the German Society for Rheumatology.
According to Mertens, the current investigations are mainly about when they should be vaccinated again.
Severe disease progresses very rarely despite vaccination
However, lesser effects are also to be expected in other people. Researchers at the Berlin Charité had found in a recently published study that older people have so far responded less efficiently to the vaccines than younger people. Previously, despite double vaccinations in some nursing homes, there were still corona outbreaks - for example in February in a Berlin facility. The study showed that the vaccinations for the elderly were very effective and generally provide good protection. But also that in older people the immune response was significantly delayed after vaccination than in younger people.
After all, an evaluation by the US epidemic authority CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) came to the conclusion that severe disease courses with Covid 19 are very rare after a full series of vaccinations.
Only slightly more than 10,000 cases were reported to the CDC, of which only a small proportion had to be treated as an inpatient and around two percent died.
This is very little compared to the more than 100 million US citizens who were vaccinated at the time.
But in the end, despite the high efficiency of the vaccines, there is no vaccine that is one hundred percent effective.
joe