Arenberger: Revaccination against covid will probably take a year or a year and a half

Revaccination with another dose of covid-19 vaccine will be necessary, according to the Minister of Health Petr Arenberger (for YES), on a regular basis, as in the case of influenza vaccination. It will probably be a year or a year and a half after the second batch, he said at a press conference tyesterday after the government meeting. Experts point out the need for revaccination. The European Union has signed another 1.8 billion vaccines with Pfizer/BioNTech.

"Revaccination is still under discussion. Not all data seems to be available yet. It's more of a pan-European issue and we will definitely join it," Arenberger said.

According to him, revaccination must be taken into account and the regime will be similar to the annual flu vaccination. "Not only because the activity of the antibodies or cellular immunity in the vaccinated person decreases over time, but also possibly with the occurrence of new mutations," he said.

According to Arenberger, the United Kingdom plans to start revaccinating in the autumn. "Our experts say that the vaccination should take place within a year to a year and a half of the previous vaccination, but it is still open," he added.

Already at the beginning of February, Roman Prymula, the former Minister of Health and former chairman of the Czech Vaccinological Society, spoke about the need for revaccination in an interview with ČTK. "The vaccine can really take the form of the flu vaccine, where changes require the vaccine to be prepared individually for each season. It can really happen once a year because the mutations in the virus will be so widespread." said Prymula at the time.

Revaccination after six months, he said, will be necessary for vaccines that contain the killed virus. However, they are not used in the Czech Republic, they are manufactured by Sinovac or Sinopharm. Conversely, gene vaccines, which include Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, will not require revaccination until two years, according to Prymula.

According to Minister Arenberger, a new working group led by Deputy Minister Martin Havrda is to deal with vaccination in the long term. It will meet for the first time on Wednesday. According to the Lidovky.cz server, it has twenty members and includes, for example, three other Arenberger deputies, the main hygienist Pavla Svrčinová, the deputy for health care Martina Vašáková or the political deputy Vlastimil Vajdák.

The chairman of the Czech Society of Vaccinology, Roman Chlíbek, the chairman of the Association of General Practitioners, Petr Šonka, or the head of the Association of Regions, President Martin Kuba (ODS), are also members. Health insurance companies or the army, which is helping with the Smart Quarantine project, will also have representatives.

Source: CTK