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According to the Permanent Vaccination Commission (Stiko), citizens in Germany will probably have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus again next year at the latest. “The virus will not leave us again. The current Corona vaccinations will therefore not be the last,” Stiko chairman Thomas Mertens told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers.
“Basically, we have to be prepared for the fact that possibly next year everyone will have to refresh their vaccination protection,” Mertens said. SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach expects immunity to last around six months after a vaccination. The first booster will therefore be due for some as early as the fall, he told the Funke newspapers. Should mutations spread in Germany against which the current vaccines are not as effective, it may be necessary to start earlier with an adapted vaccine. For example, the vaccines from Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson do not work as well against the South African variant. “If this variant becomes widespread in our country, it would then be better to immunize the affected individuals first.”
Mertens pointed out that manufacturers say they are already working on modified vaccines that should be effective against relevant currently known mutants. According to the head of Stiko, it is also conceivable that vaccination protection is already weakening again in individual groups or is generally too weak. This could affect individual age groups or people with certain pre-existing conditions. In patients whose immune defenses are controlled by medication, it could be that a third dose is needed in the short term, Mertens said.
— source: k.at/picture: pixabay.com
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