July 05, 2022
09:06
The Superior Health Council recommends distributing second boosters once morest covid to all those over 18 from September.
The Superior Health Council recommends thatFrom September onwardsall those over 18 can receive a second booster vaccine once morest Covid 19. Risk groups and nursing staff will be the first to be able to request their additional injection, explains Het Laatste Nieuws, who consulted the CSS opinion. The Interministerial Health Conference organized this week will take note of this opinion and might therefore decide on the organization of a next major vaccination campaign in Belgium.
The over 80 and people at high risk had already been invited to receive an anticovid booster.
The virus is circulating a lot
Covid infections are currently on the rise. While experts hope that the spread of the virus can calm down somewhat in July August with the closure of schools, the start of the school year in September, with the return from vacation and the reopening of classes, might lead to a new upsurge in contamination.
According to the latest figures from Sciensano, between June 25 and July 1, 5,518 new Sars-CoV-2 contaminations were detected on average per day (+ 44% over one week).
Between June 28 and July 4, there was an average 119 hospital admissions per day due to covid (+ 17%). 1,526 coronavirus-positive people are currently hospitalized, including 73 patients in intensive care.
The deaths are also on the rise: 7.9 people died per day on average while they were carrying the virus (+67%).
The reproduction rate of the virus is greater than 1 (1.11), which means that the epidemic tends to accelerate.
An old vaccine or a new one?
The unknown remains: with which vaccine? We do not know when will be approved by the European Medicines Agency the new vaccines developed once morest omicron. Note that we also do not know how effective will these be? once morest the sub-variants that are mainly currently rampant, BA.4 and BA.5since these new products were designed once morest the first version of omicron, BA.1.
If the new vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna are not approved and available quickly enough, previously produced messenger RNA vaccines, still deemed effective once morest severe forms of covid, will be used.
The rate of people who received a first booster, following their complete vaccination, varies greatly according to the regions of the country. In Flanders, 85% of adults have made this “reminder”, compared to 67% in Wallonia and 49% in Brussels.
