The health and medicine agencies of the European Union said they were recommending a second booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine for people over 60 years of age, as COVID-19 infections are increasing again.
Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said hospitalizations and cases are rising again as they enter the summer period, and she urged everybody to get vaccinated and boosted as fast as possible.
In a statement issued by the European Medicines Agency and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, she said there is no time to lose. The European agencies had already recommended a second COVID-19 booster shot for people over the age of 80 years, since April 2022.
Stell Kyriakides added that she called on member states of the European Union to launch second boosters for everyone over the age of 60 years along with all vulnerable people immediately.
Andrea Ammon, ECDC director, said they were currently seeing increasing COVID-19 case notification rates, and an increasing trend in ICU and hospital admissions and occupancy in most countries, which are mainly driven by the BA.5 sub-variant of Omicron COVID-19 variant.
Andrea Ammon said this highlights the start of a new, and widespread COVID-19 wave across the European Union. Still there are too many individuals at risk of being affected by severe COVID-19 infection whom they need to protect as soon as possible.
