European regulators have recommended a second Covid-19 booster jab for everyone over 60 as well as all medically vulnerable people across Europe amid mounting infections and hospitalisations.
The EU’s health and medicine agencies had previously recommended a second booster for people over the age of 80 in April. But with concerns growing over the rise in cases in Europe, driven mainly by the Omicron variant BA.5, the advice has been widened effective immediately.
The new recommendations go further than the current advice in the UK, where people aged 75 and above, residents in care homes for older people, and those with weakened immune systems have been offered a second booster.
“With cases and hospitalisations rising again as we enter the summer period, I urge everybody to get vaccinated and boosted as quickly as possible,” said Stella Kyriakides, the European commissioner for health and food safety.
“There is no time to lose,” she added in a statement issued by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency. “I call on member states to roll out second boosters for everyone over the age of 60 as well as all vulnerable persons immediately.”
The ECDC director, Andrea Ammon, said there was “an increasing trend in hospital and ICU admissions and occupancy in several countries”, driven mainly by the Omicron variant BA.5.
“This signals the start of a new, widespread Covid-19 wave across the European Union. There are still too many individuals at risk of severe Covid-19 infection whom we need to protect as soon as possible,” Ammon said.
However, the agencies also said there was no need yet to give a second booster “to people below 60 years of age who are not at higher risk of severe disease”, or to those working in healthcare or in care homes.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, Covid cases have been rising sharply since the end of May around most of Europe.
The number of new daily cases in the WHO’s European region – which comprises 53 countries and regions including several in central Asia – exceeded 675,000 on Friday.
At the end of June, the WHO said Europe was expected to see high levels of Covid-19 this summer, owing to the milder but more contagious variant BA.5.
The summer periods of 2020 and 2021 were marked by a relative respite in Europe, with infections so far peaking in autumn and spring.
Almost all European countries have seen a recent increase in cases. According to WHO Europe, Cyprus is seeing the highest incidence, with France second, followed by Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and Austria.
In the UK, Covid infections also continue to rise, with one in 25 people in England, one in 20 in Wales and one in 17 in Scotland infected with the virus.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 2.7 million people in private households were estimated to have had Covid-19 last week, up 18% from 2.3 million the previous week.
About one in six people aged 75 and over in England (16%) have not received any doses of Covid-19 vaccine in the past six months, putting them more at risk of severe disease. This could lead to increasing pressure on hospitals in the coming months.
On Monday the US biotech firm Moderna said it had completed regulatory submissions for its updated Covid vaccine in the UK, Europe and Australia. If approved by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the bivalent vaccine, which primes the immune system against Omicron and the original strain of Covid virus, will be available for the autumn booster programme.
In a press statement, Moderna said the updated booster outperformed its existing booster against the now-dominant BA.4 and BA.4 variants of Omicron, raising neutralising antibody levels 70% higher.
In the autumn, people aged 65 and over in the UK will be offered a booster, as will frontline health and social care workers, and there is a suggestion everyone over 50 may be included in the programme.
