2024-03-09 18:57:37
March 9, 2024 – In the autumn of 2023, some groups of people could receive a repeat injection against the coronavirus. People who received this injection had a twice lower chance of a corona infection than people who only received the basic series and at least one booster. This is evident from the RIVM’s Corona Vaccination Study (VASCO).
An updated corona vaccine from BioNTech/Pfizer was used for the autumn round of 2023. This vaccination focuses on the omikron-XBB variant of the coronavirus. The Corona Vaccination Study (VASCO) investigated how well someone is protected against the omikron variant with this shot. We compared this with people who only received a basic series and at least one booster, and therefore no omikron-XBB vaccine. For this we used data on vaccinations and corona infections from 23,895 VASCO participants. The period examined was from October 9, 2023 to January 9, 2024.
Better protection against infection
In participants aged 60 and older, the protection of the updated corona vaccine against a new infection was 50%. Healthcare workers and people with an underlying illness could also get a shot. In this group aged 18 to 59, protection was 41%. This means that participants who received the new corona vaccine had a twice lower risk of a corona infection than participants who did not receive this shot. In addition to vaccination, a previous infection also protects against a new infection.
Protection against omikron-JN.1 variant
The omikron-JN.1 variant has been circulating in the Netherlands since autumn 2023. This has caused almost all infections since January 2024. The updated omikron-XBB vaccine (or a previous infection) appeared to provide slightly less protection against this than against the older XBB variants.
Positive self-tests examined
VASCO determines the variant of the infection from positive self-tests. Participants have been able to send these to the RIVM since the summer of 2023. During the period examined, we identified the virus variant of 580 positive self-tests submitted. About a third of the self-tests involved omikron-XBB. This is also the variant that the updated vaccine focuses on. The other self-tests mostly involved omikron-JN.1.
Source RIVM/stock photo
090324/HvL
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