Great news / Approval by European Commission is expected within hours / Booster vaccination for people 12 years and above after three months of last vaccination or infection / Urgent recommendation for people over 60 and people with pre-existing conditions whose last infection or vaccination is older than six months


"This is great news; the vaccines will help us to get an even better grip on the pandemic in the upcoming months," commented Peter Liese, the health policy spokesperson for the largest group in the European Parliament (EPP-Christian Democrats), on the news that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended approval for two adapted vaccines against the Omicron subvariant of the coronavirus.

"I expect the European Commission to make the formal approval decision in the next few hours. Then, the vaccines will be available in Germany and some other European countries as early as next week . The approval refers to a booster for all people aged 12 years and above. A booster vaccination is possible three months after the last vaccination or after an infection. Above all, however, we must now once again focus on the risk groups. Vaccination is definitely recommended for people over 60 and those with pre-existing conditions whose last vaccination or infection was more than six months ago. We expect an adapted recommendation from the European Medicines Agency and the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) in the next few days. I hope that the national authorities will also quickly give a recommendation. When older people and risk groups are considered first, it may well be that a recommendation for younger healthy people will follow in the next few weeks, when we have more insight on the course of the pandemic and the effectiveness of the vaccines.

 

The vaccines have been developed not only based on animal experiments but also on clinical trials in humans, which demonstrate safety and a clear positive benefit-risk analysis. The vaccines are bivalent, meaning they contain both a dose targeting the original virus (Wuhan-type) and a dose (Moderna 25µg and BioNTech 15µg) adapted to the Omicron subvariant BA.1. As a result, protection against other potentially emerging variants will likely be very good as well," said the MEP and physician.