resistanceAnd one week after the announcement, Standing Vaccination Committee (STIKO) has now issued its detailed Covid-19 vaccination recommendations and has made changes in cross-vaccination. According to a paper published on Thursday afternoon, STIKO expects that the decision to recommend such programs for people over 60 will be “widely accepted.”
Last week, the team unexpectedly announced that AstraZeneca According to his assessment, those who are vaccinated for the first time should receive a second dose of mRNA vaccine at least 4 weeks later. The background is the spread of the more contagious Delta variant. In this case, full vaccination is particularly important. The general practitioner criticized the procedure due to the “huge extra effort” that made patients feel uncomfortable.
In the 8th update of the Covid-19 vaccination recommendations, STIKO wrote that according to research, the immune response after cross-vaccination was significantly stronger than after two doses of AstraZeneca. Expect higher and longer lasting effectiveness. There is also a time factor: through cross-vaccination, people over 60 can get the best protection faster. The two doses of AstraZeneca were initially planned to be administered up to 12 weeks apart. According to STIKO’s research, a shorter interval may be related to a stronger vaccination response after the second vaccination.
Experts talked about the heterologous vaccination program STIKO previously only recommended young people who had already received the initial AstraZeneca vaccine, and then recommended this vaccine to people 60 years of age and older who want to be vaccinated.
STIKO believes that its recommendations for people who have just received the AstraZeneca vaccine or are vaccinated for the first time are particularly relevant. It said that anyone who made an appointment for the second AstraZeneca vaccination soon could “absolutely accept.” Two AstraZeneca vaccinations with an interval of nine to twelve weeks “can also prevent serious infections of Delta variants”.
STIKO explained that the reverse sequence of cross-vaccination—mRNA first, then vector vaccine—is “absolutely avoided” and refers to the smaller characteristics that trigger an immune response.
STIKO now recommends the following intervals between the two required vaccine doses: three to six weeks for BioNtech/Pfizer, four to six weeks for Moderna, and nine to twelve weeks for AstraZeneca (if others should be vaccinated twice) And “from four weeks”, combining AstraZeneca and mRNA vaccines.
