Britain is expanding vaccine formulation tests

Vaccines are currently given in the UK with an interval of up to twelve weeks. In the country, more than half of adults – 32 million people – have already received the first dose of the vaccine, and nearly 8 million people have been vaccinated twice so far.

In Germany, federal and state health ministers agreed on Tuesday, that people under the age of 60 who have been vaccinated with a first dose of AstraZeneca should switch to another preparation for the second vaccination. Ministers are following a recommendation made by the Standing Vaccination Committee (STICO) at the beginning of April.

The recommendation is based on rare cases of cerebral vein thrombosis following vaccination with Vaxzevira from AstraZeneca. The federal and state governments recently decided to allow Vaxzevria to only be administered to people over the age of 60 as a rule. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, about 2.2 million citizens under the age of 60 have received an initial vaccination with AstraZeneca in the past few weeks.

To date, there is no scientific data for the heterogeneous vaccination series, as acknowledged by STIKO. She explained: “Until relevant data is available, STIKO recommends that people under the age of 60, instead of the second AstraZeneca vaccine, be given a dose of mRNA vaccine twelve weeks after the first vaccination.” STIKO explained that the weekly vaccination period is that of a one-time AstraZeneca vaccine, as protection begins to decrease after 12 weeks. It recommends that a study be conducted to verify the immunological effects according to the heterogeneous vaccination schedule.