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Austria recommends fourth Covid vaccination for over 60s and high-risk patients

Amanda Previdelli
Amanda Previdelli - [email protected]
Austria recommends fourth Covid vaccination for over 60s and high-risk patients
A healthcare worker prepares to administer a vaccine (Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images via AFP)

Austria's Health Ministry also announced the Valneva Covid-19 vaccine would be available by the end of August.

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Austria's National Immunization Board (NIG) now recommends another booster vaccination (or a fourth Covid shot) for people from the age of 60 and people at risk.

The board said there is still no general recommendation for the fourth dose. However, such a recommendation is expected in autumn, before the cold months.

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Until now, the booster vaccination was only recommended from the age of 65. With this amendment, the NIG follows the recommendation of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

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The booster vaccination should be "at the earliest four months, but at least from six months after completion of the primary vaccination (three vaccinations) or after a (PCR-confirmed) infection.

Healthy persons aged 12 to 59 can also receive the fourth vaccination at a personal request despite there being no official recommendation.

New vaccination offer

The Ministry of Health expects the first delivery of around 74,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine Valneva in Austria in the next two weeks.

Then the vaccine will also be available for the federal states for retrieval and can probably be used in the vaccination campaigns at the end of August. This expands the vaccine repertoire available in Austria with the first "classic dead vaccine".

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Valneva was developed in France and Austria. "It is the only inactivated whole virus COVID-19 vaccine candidate in clinical trials in Europe", the laboratory said.

"I hope this will reach some people who have so far been sceptical about the newly developed mRNA vaccines", Austria's Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) said.

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Austria on Wednesday recorded 6,992 new coronavirus cases after 93,328 PCR tests, according to the Health Ministry.

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There are 1,339 people hospitalised with Covid-19 (33 more than the day before) and 81 in intensive care units. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 19,231 people have died from Covid-19 in Austria.

Just under 60 percent of the population has a valid immunologic protection, meaning they have a combination of vaccination and/or recovered status recognised by the government.

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