NRW is rowing back when boosting

After massive criticism, the NRW Ministry of Health improved its controversial decree on boosting. Now there should be booster vaccinations on a large scale no longer after four weeks, but only after four or five months. The ministry has now specified its requirements: “The minimum interval to basic immunization should as a rule be at least five months, four weeks minimum interval is only possible in individual cases,” said the house of Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU).

In the vaccination centers, the booster is also allowed after four months: “As part of the communal vaccination offers, people who received their basic immunization at least four months ago can get a boost. Individual decisions based on a medical indication for an earlier booster vaccination remain unaffected by this, provided that a minimum interval of four weeks is reached. “The ministry now also emphasizes:” The minimum interval of four weeks discussed in the vaccination decree of December 13, 2021 therefore expressly does not make a recommendation but an absolute lower limit for individual decisions. “

Municipalities understood that very differently on Monday. Doctors and immunologists then sharply criticized the ministry. Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) initially defended the controversial Laumann decree from Monday.

At the same time, the warnings of a new deficiency cause trouble. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) fears a shortage of corona vaccines in the coming year. “We don’t have enough vaccine. That surprised many, me too, “he said on Tuesday in the ARD” Tagesthemen “. After an inventory, the experts at his company came to the conclusion that the reserves for January to March were insufficient.

The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) reacted in horror: “In Germany we have just reached a record speed with vaccinations in practices. This news that we have a shortage of vaccines is a fatal signal to everyone who is currently fighting this pandemic with full commitment, ”said KBV boss Andreas Gassen. You need transparency and, above all, enough vaccines quickly. “It cannot be that the weekly vaccine delivery is a game of chance, in which the resident colleagues never know whether they will receive what they have ordered. It cannot be true that too little vaccine was bought in the country where vaccines were developed. “

Laumann, on the other hand, remains calm: “In North Rhine-Westphalia we will definitely have vaccines in the foreseeable future. The general practitioners’ practices have been very well supplied, ”said Laumann in the WDR. He is also convinced that the federal government can quickly procure additional material. “I’m pretty sure that the federal government will succeed, I’ll tell you in the next 14 days, to get an additional vaccine.” The vaccination campaign shouldn’t stall now. Lauterbach said in the same line as the state health ministers that he was in very good talks with Moderna and Biontech. “At the end of the day, the federal government is responsible for procuring vaccines,” Laumann clarified.

It is all the more important that society can rely on vaccination certificates. And here the security is now increased in the everyday issuing of the certificates. “In order to be able to contain counterfeit vaccination records more effectively, pharmacies will be able to use a new function in their certification portal from Thursday. Then there will be a new checking function with which pharmacies can digitally check the batch numbers of the inoculated cans, ”said Thomas Preis, head of the North Rhine Pharmacists’ Association, our editorial team. Together with the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), a possibility has been developed to detect counterfeits even better: Specifically, pharmacies will be able to immediately check whether the batch number given in the vaccination certificate matches the vaccine being used. In addition, it is checked whether these batches had even been distributed to practices or vaccination centers at the specified vaccination time. “We are very happy to be able to provide honest citizens with a digital vaccination certificate even faster and more securely,” said Preis. Anyone who presents falsified documents will now find it even more difficult to obtain digital vaccination certificates.