By Ludwig Burger
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Critics are calling on Germany’s vaccine advisory panel to overhaul the way it evaluates COVID-19 shots as the nation struggles to tame soaring infections and as its chief comes under fire for questioning the safety of inoculating children.
The panel of 18 appointees known as STIKO last week recommended vaccinations for limited numbers of children, including those at risk of developing severe COVID-19, but stopped short of a blanket recommendation for 5-11 year olds.
That limited approval, combined with STIKO taking weeks to fall into line with Germany’s regional health ministers widening the eligibility for booster shots from September, has stoked a debate whether the expert panel needs to be reorganised to speed up decisions to keep up with the of pace of the coronavirus.
In recent weeks, Germany has been among the worst-hit countries in western Europe, with infection rates among school-age children twice as high as the all-age rate.
Critics say STIKO’s exacting standards on the data it analyses, normally seen as a strength which has earned it a strong reputation since it was set up in 1972 by the health ministry, mean it can be behind the curve in this pandemic.
“STIKO’s work is highly evidence-based. That normally makes sense but at the moment it the reason why STIKO is often falling behind the latest developments,” said Carsten Watzl, a professor at Dortmund University and secretary general of the German immunology society.
STIKO Chairman Thomas Mertens sparked also criticism from the association of paediatricians this month when he said in a newspaper interview, after the EU drug regulator’s approval, he would not get a seven-year-old child inoculated, if he had one.
Mertens dismissed as low the quality of data on any side effects in millions of younger children vaccinated in the United States since early November, expressing concerns over an uncertainty of vaccination risks.
MEDICAL BENEFITS
In an interview on Thursday on one of Germany’s main evening news programmes, Heute Journal by broadcaster ZDF, the presenter asked whether it was still appropriate for him to hold such responsibilities, after questioning him on STIKO’s caution with regard to paediatric vaccinations and the boosters.
On Friday, Mertens told broadcaster Welt his only mistake had likely been to mention a personal view in public.
Germany’s infectious disease body Robert Koch institute, with which STIKO is associated, declined to comment on any of the criticism.
The European Medicines Agency approved the shot for children on Nov. 25. It said on Thursday that there had been no safety concerns over the more than 5 million U.S. children who have received at least one shot.
The EU rollout https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/joyful-moment-or-risky-move-europe-divided-over-kids-vaccines-2021-12-13 got under way on Monday, although countries were pursuing different strategies and Germany is not alone https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-children-aged-5-11-eu-2021-12-10 in a slower or more limited deployment. Spain, Italy, Austria and Denmark are among the countries encouraging parents to have all their over fives inoculated.
STIKO has conceded that a large proportion in the 5-11 group will eventually be infected but has said that healthy children were at a low risk of severe disease.
The German expert panel has stayed within its remit to only consider individual medical benefits and largely ignore any fall-out from school closures and also the role of children in passing the virus along to others in a country where almost 20% of adults have not had a two-shot course.
Watzl said this view was too narrow. “STIKO should have been bolstered early in the pandemic, a pandemic STIKO if you will. This could be the same appointees but with more resources and maybe with a different set of considerations,” he told Reuters.
STIKO’s high standing among parents and paediatricians now means Germany’s immunisation campaign for the youngest, also launched on Monday, could get off to a muted start.
“A wide recommendation by STIKO would arguably have resulted in a bigger willingness to vaccinate among parents,” Leif Erik Sander, a leading vaccine researcher at Charite in Berlin, Germany’s largest university hospital, said.
“The latest decision, however, will likely prompt debate because recommendations in other countries were broader.”
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Keith Weir and Alison Williams)
