The Standing Committee on Vaccination (Stiko) intends to recommend a fourth vaccination against the coronavirus to people aged between 60 and 69.

This emerges from a draft of the Stiko, which is available to the FAZ.

The "Handelsblatt" and the "Bild" newspaper reported about it first.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) did not initially comment on this.

Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) wrote via Twitter: "Thanks to #Stiko that the recommendation 4th vaccination for the over 60 group is now coming." This is an "important step" in the right direction.

So far, the commission recommends a fourth vaccination only for people who are at least 70 years old or belong to a risk group.

With its design, the Stiko follows the recommendations of the EU health authority ECDC and the European Medicines Agency EMA.

In order to be allowed to receive the vaccination, people must - as with previous boosters - keep a distance to the most recent vaccination or last corona infection.

In the Stiko draft it is six months.

The interval can only be reduced to four months in justified individual cases, it said.