Administering additional doses of vaccine to fully vaccinated individuals in the general population “is not urgent”. It is best to continue providing the recommended doses - one or two, depending on the vaccine - to all eligible people, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Wednesday 1 September.
In an interim report, the institution explains that the first available data show that the vaccines authorised in the EU “currently highly protective against hospitalisation, severe illness and death”, and it calls for “keeping in mind the main objective of the vaccination strategy”: the prevention of severe cases of Covid-19.
The ECDC therefore recommends a booster dose for immunocompromised people and even for frail elderly people, especially those living in long-term care facilities.
More data needed
The European Centre also states that “more robust data” are still needed to inform future policy.
There are still gaps in knowledge regarding the required protection in different population groups, the time between the primary vaccination series and the administration of a booster dose, the duration of immunity, and the effectiveness against variants.
On Thursday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) reacted by assuring that it was continuing its assessments on the subject and that the ECDC report would be updated according to the progress of these assessments.
In the meantime, she says, “Member States may consider preparatory plans for administering boosters and additional doses”. Some, however, are already in the preparation stage (see EUROPE 12777/10).
Availability of vaccines
The ECDC also calls for clear communication and consideration of the benefits and risks of the possible use of these additional doses.
The benefits, it explains, may include increased protection against severe or mild to moderate illness and long Covid. Among the risks, however, it identifies potential safety issues, as well as the impact on trust in vaccines. It also points to the risk concerning vaccine availability.
Asked about the issue on Thursday, European Commission health spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker said it was partly in anticipation of a possible need for booster doses that new contracts were recently signed with Pfizer/BioNTech (see EUROPE 12723/3) and Moderna (see EUROPE 12746/10), guaranteeing the delivery of nearly 2 billion doses over the next 2 years.
On this point, however, ECDC recalls that many countries outside the EU are still struggling to receive and administer sufficient doses to their populations.
It calls on European states to take this into account, pointing out that “the current global shortage” of vaccines could be further exacerbated by administering additional doses to their entire populations.
For the ECDC report: https://bit.ly/3zGExBN (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)