Who should get vaccinated with the new Omicron vaccines?

Berlin If the corona vaccine adapted to the BA.4/BA.5 variant is also available in the practices by next week at the latest, this will mark the start of the new vaccination campaign for autumn and winter.

It was only on Tuesday that the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) announced that it would adapt its vaccination recommendation to the new vaccine. This applies to both the BA.4/BA.5 variant vaccine and the BA.1 variant vaccine.

The number of vaccinations should thus increase significantly again. The vaccination campaign in Germany has been progressing slowly for months. Also because many Germans have apparently been waiting for the new vaccines. The Handelsblatt covers the most important facts about the new Omikron vaccines here:

Approval and delivery: when will the new Omicron vaccines come out?

According to the Federal Ministry of Health, Germany has received around ten million doses of BA.1 vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer and around four million doses of BA.1 vaccine from Moderna in the past two weeks.

Specifically, the doctors in private practice ordered 1.6 million doses of the BA.1 vaccine in the week before last and around 1.2 million doses of the vaccine in the past week, which they will receive from both manufacturers this week. The Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance Physician Care (ZI) informed the Handelsblatt on request.

Order numbers for the BA.5 vaccine were not yet known as of Tuesday. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, Biontech delivered two million doses of the BA.4/BA.5 vaccine directly to pharmaceutical wholesalers on September 19 and 20. This amount will then be available to the practices from the middle of the week at the earliest.

A further two million doses will be shipped to pharmaceutical wholesalers later this week, available from September 26th. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, another 15 million doses will be delivered to the federal central warehouse by the end of the month. So by early October, Germany is expected to receive 19 million doses of BA.4/BA.5 vaccine.

>> Also read here: RKI registers 60,237 new corona infections – incidence at 259.0

The new vaccines are already generally approved. The European Commission approved the BA.4/5 vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer last Tuesday. The BA.1 vaccines from Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna had received approval shortly before.

Where can I get vaccinated with the new Omikron vaccines?

People who want to get the new vaccines can get them from GP surgeries, immunization centers, and mobile immunization teams.

Who should get vaccinated with the new Omicron vaccines?

In the case of Covid-19 booster vaccinations, Stiko advocates the preferred use of the new preparations adapted to the omicron variant. However, a fourth vaccination is still only recommended for certain groups, such as people over 60 years of age, according to a Stiko statement on Tuesday about a draft decision. It is not yet a final recommendation.

The draft relates to both the recently approved BA.1 vaccines and an even more recent BA.4/BA.5 vaccine. Both elicited an improved antibody response against different omicron variants compared to previous mRNA vaccines, they said. In addition, there were consistently good answers to the variant from the early phase of the pandemic.

A first booster vaccination (third dose) is still recommended for people over the age of twelve – “usually six months after completion of the basic immunization or after an infection”. The groups for which Stiko has long recommended a second booster (fourth dose) include people over the age of 60, high-risk patients such as immunocompromised people over the age of twelve, residents of nursing homes and staff in the health and care sector. Here, too, there is usually a gap of six months from the previous vaccination or infection.

In the case of people who are particularly at risk, such as the very old and patients with a weakened immune system, it may make sense, depending on previous vaccinations and infections, to administer a fifth dose, Stiko said. According to the Stiko decision, if there is a special indication for a booster vaccination in children aged five to eleven years, the previous vaccines that are recommended and approved for this age group should continue to be used.

>> Read also: Fourth vaccination: You can read the original Stiko recommendation here

According to the expert panel, people who have not been infected with Sars-CoV-2 since the end of 2021 as part of the omicron wave should benefit from a booster with an advanced vaccine. However, anyone who has recently received a booster vaccination with the conventional preparations in accordance with the previous recommendation does not need “a separate extra vaccination dose with an adapted vaccine”.

Despite the limited study data, Stiko rates the new preparations as “safe and well tolerated”, it said. There is a great similarity to the previous mRNA vaccines against Covid-19. Nevertheless, the message emphasized: “Stiko expressly calls on the vaccine manufacturers to provide and publish post-marketing studies on the safety and effectiveness of the variant-adapted vaccines.”

Variants BA.1 and BA.5: which of the adapted omicron vaccines to choose?

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the omicron subline BA.5 is currently predominant in Germany. It now accounts for more than 90 percent of infections and is considered to be even easier to transmit. The US regulatory authority FDA recommended manufacturers to update their vaccines to this variant as early as July. Biontech and Moderna have accordingly applied for emergency approvals in the USA for a bivalent corona vaccine, which is directed not only against the wild type (Wuhan virus) but also against the variants BA.4 and BA.5.

According to study data, however, the previously available vaccine adapted to BA.1 works significantly better against the BA.5 variant than first-generation vaccines.

Biontech founder Ugur Sahin told the “Spiegel” that there was basically no huge difference between his company’s two vaccines that were adapted to the subvariants. “Both have shown in studies that they produce a clearly superior antibody response to omicron compared to the original vaccine.”

How many doses of the adapted vaccine are needed?

The ZI assumes that around 20 million vaccine doses will be needed for the upcoming vaccination season. The deliveries now announced should cover this need. If the Stiko also recommends the fourth vaccination for people under 60 years of age, up to 60 million vaccine doses would be necessary. At the moment, however, there is less concern that the demand cannot be met and more that not enough people are being vaccinated.

More: These corona rules should apply in Germany from autumn