The pressure doesn't let up. For weeks there have been repeated requests to the address of the Standing Vaccination Commission, but please finally recommend the corona vaccination for children from the age of twelve. However, the experts at STIKO, as the body is abbreviated, have so far always declined. Because Covid 19 disease in children is almost always extremely mild and there is not enough clarity about the possible risks of vaccination due to a lack of study data, they are reluctant to make a general recommendation. The scientists only recommend vaccination to children with certain pre-existing conditions. With these, the risk of a severe course of the disease increases, which in turn increases the benefit of the vaccination. But so far it has remained the samethat the risks of vaccination for healthy people could not be ruled out convincingly enough.
Kim Bjorn Becker
Editor in politics.
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Timo Frasch
Political correspondent in Munich.
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Matthias Wyssuwa
Political correspondent for Northern Germany and Scandinavia based in Hamburg.
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"So far there have been no new findings," said the Mainz pediatrician Fred Zepp of the FAZ on Wednesday before the start of the STIKO's weekly switching conference. Zepp has been a member of the committee for many years. It could always be the case that new data lead to a different assessment of the situation. The medical professional pointed out, however, that the American regulatory authority FDA recently asked vaccine manufacturers BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna to double the number of subjects in their studies on the effects of vaccination in children. For Zepp, this is confirmation that STIKO is on the right track with its reluctance. It is noteworthy that the American authorities paid "a certain amount of attention" to this question, said Zepp.
Not everyone agrees with this assessment. Criticism came from the medical officers on Wednesday. "If the vaccines have been tested, checked and approved, I see no reason not to recommend them for vaccination, even for younger people," said the chairwoman of the Federal Association of Doctors in the Public Health Service, Ute Teichert, the newspapers of the Funke media group . The incidences are particularly high in the lower age groups. “That will soon move to the even younger groups. Why shouldn't we protect these age groups from Corona? "
In Germany, the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine is approved for children from the age of twelve; the specialists at the European Medicines Agency already recommend the Moderna vaccine. As soon as the European Commission gives its approval, this vaccine will also be approved for children from the age of twelve. The Italian drug agency AIFA has already anticipated the move and released the vaccine for children on Wednesday.
But not only medical professionals are in favor of vaccinating as many children and adolescents as possible. The political pressure on the STIKO to change its recommendation comes mainly from the south of the republic. Bavaria's Prime Minister and CSU Chairman Markus Söder has been on the subject for weeks. In doing so, however, he got caught up in contradictions. On the one hand, he complained that the back and forth of scientific assessments had made AstraZeneca's vaccine the “nation's slow seller”. On the other hand, he said two weeks ago with regard to vaccinating students: "We very much hope that the STIKO will develop their opinion further."