In Germany, booster vaccination continues to be administered to many German citizens. Meanwhile, Israel has already begun to inject the particularly vulnerable with a 4th vaccination against Covid-19. But apparently experts do not believe that a 4th vaccination against the virus is very useful.
Neither in Germany nor the EU there are so far plans to consider a 4th Corona vaccination for residents. On this subject has now also Marco Cavaleri, the head of the Department for vaccination strategy of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), to speak. He doubts that a fourth vaccination would be a sensible approach. “Currently, there are no data to support such a decision. Cavaleri made this clear at a press conference on Tuesday: “Additional booster vaccinations can be part of emergency plans, but repeated vaccinations at short intervals would not be a sustainable long-term strategy,” the expert is certain. In fact, he believes the booster strategy could have just the opposite effect. For example, Cavaleri fears that repeated vaccinations could even overload people’s immune systems. In addition, the willingness of many people to be vaccinated could decline with each additional vaccination campaign.
Cavaleri indicated that one must try to find “a vaccine that is suitable to prevent future variants,” the EMA expert believes. Studies from Israel had concluded that the protective effect increases fivefold when a 4th vaccination is administered. This called the head of the study,
Professor Gili Regev of the Gertner Institute for Epidemiological Research, only “good, but not sufficient.” “We see a certain increase in antibodies, but the increase is not very impressive,” Regev indicates. Moreover, early experts appear to see the Omikron variant as an important step in the transition from pandemic to endemic. Omicron could act like a natural booster, according to Cavaleri. “If a lot of people have strong immunity, that could be the path to endemicity,” the Italian scientist believes.
