EU recommends second Covid booster for vulnerable and over-60s

European regulators have recommended a second Covid-19 booster jab for everyone over 60 as well as all medically vulnerable people across Europe amid mounting infections and hospitalisations.

The EU’s health and medicine agencies had previously recommended a second booster for people over the age of 80 in April. But with concerns growing over the rise in cases in Europe, driven mainly by the Omicron variant BA.5, the advice has been widened effective immediately.

The new recommendations go further than the current advice in the UK, where people aged 75 and above, residents in care homes for older people, and those with weakened immune systems have been offered a second booster.

“With cases and hospitalisations rising again as we enter the summer period, I urge everybody to get vaccinated and boosted as quickly as possible,” Stella Kyriakides, the European commissioner for health and food safety, said.

“There is no time to lose,” she added in a statement issued by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency. “I call on member states to roll out second boosters for everyone over the age of 60 as well as all vulnerable persons immediately.”

The ECDC director, Andrea Ammon, said there was “an increasing trend in hospital and ICU admissions and occupancy in several countries”, driven mainly by the Omicron variant BA.5.

“This signals the start of a new, widespread Covid-19 wave across the European Union. There are still too many individuals at risk of severe Covid-19 infection whom we need to protect as soon as possible,” Ammon added.

However, the agencies also said at the moment there was no need to give out a second booster “to people below 60 years of age who are not at higher risk of severe disease”, or those working in healthcare or in care homes.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, Covid cases have been rising sharply since the end of May around most of Europe.

The number of new daily cases in the WHO’s European region – which comprises 53 countries and regions including several in Central Asia – exceeded 675,000 on Friday.

At the end of June, the WHO warned that Europe was expected to see “high levels” of Covid-19 this summer, owing to the milder but more contagious variant BA.5, across the continent.

The summer periods of 2020 and 2021 had been marked by a relative respite in Europe, with infections so far peaking between autumn and spring.

Almost all European countries have seen a recent increase in cases. According to WHO Europe, Cyprus is seeing the highest incidents with France second, followed by Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and Austria.

In the UK, Covid infections also continue to rise, with one in 25 people in England, one in 20 in Wales and one in 17 in Scotland infected with the virus.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 2.7 million people in private households are estimated to have had Covid-19 last week, up 18% from 2.3 million the previous week.

About one in six people aged 75 and over in England (16%) have not received any doses of Covid-19 vaccine in the past six months, putting them more at risk of severe disease. This could lead to increasing pressure on hospitals in the coming months.

In the autumn, those aged 65 and over in the UK will be offered a booster alongside frontline health and social care workers, though there is a suggestion everyone over 50 may be included in the programme.