Covid-19: faced with the Omicron surge, the HAS recommends a booster of the vaccine after 3 months

Published on : 12/24/2021 – 12:25

Faced with the fifth wave of the Covid-19 epidemic and while the Omicron variant, particularly contagious, is spreading in France, the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS), in an opinion published on Friday, December 24, recommends that the dose of Vaccine booster can be performed from three months.

While waiting to examine this opinion, the Ministry of Health indicated in the wake that the deadline would be reduced to 4 months from now, and not from January 3 as initially planned. Until then, the time limit for the booster dose was 5 months after the previous injection.

“Like several countries, the HAS recommends that the administration of a booster dose can now be carried out from 3 months after the primary vaccination in the population eligible for this booster”, writes the HAS in its opinion.

It justifies this recommendation by the fact that, according to the latest published studies, the vaccines are 80% effective for one to two months against the non-serious symptomatic forms of the Omicron variant, but lose their effectiveness more quickly than with the previous variants: 34% at 4 months after a primary vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine.

“Good tolerance”

These same data show a rise in vaccine efficacy to 75% two weeks after a booster dose.

The HAS also considered work suggesting that the very rapid administration of a booster dose to the majority of the adult population would reduce the mortality associated with Covid-19 linked to the Omicron variant by 15%.

The results of two studies confirm “good tolerance” including when it is administered as early as 3 months after the primary vaccination, underlines the HAS.

>> To read: Covid-19: robot portrait of the Omicron variant, one month after its appearance

On Wednesday, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had indicated that the booster dose would not be extended “for the moment” to adolescents. In its opinion, however, the High Authority for Health now recommends the administration of a booster dose in 12-17 year olds suffering from immunodeficiency or a serious risk comorbidity, according to the same procedures as the adults.

It specifies that it will decide later on the administration of this booster to all adolescents, pending the results of a clinical trial conducted by Pfizer to assess the efficacy and safety of this booster dose in teens.

With AFP