Brussels, Belgium: About 400,000 people have already received their autumn booster dose during the autumn vaccination campaign against COVID-19. Over half of the adult population has already received an invitation.
More than two in three over-65s have already been vaccinated or made an appointment thus far, just like two in three of those with weak immunity. About 800,000 more doses will be administered before the end of October month, according to figures by Flemish Health Minister-Hilde Crevits.
Crevits mentioned in the statement, “The vaccination centres with the many employees and volunteers have now been back to work for a week. After one week, the response rate is good. That way, we can fully protect people against a potential autumn wave in the coming weeks.”
Moreover, all together, about 4.5 million citizens will have the chance to be vaccinated before the beginning of November month, she stated, pointing out that the vaccines used in the campaign are the recently-approved ones adapted to the Omicron strain of the virus.
The health minister of Belgium agreed to the statement that whenever new vaccines are approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the authorities will always switch to the newest ones as soon as possible.
Along with this, Crevits asserted, “That switch to the latest vaccines has happened. This week, the even newer vaccines adapted to the BA.4, and BA.5 variants also received approval from EMA. These can be delivered from the beginning of October. From then on, we will switch to those vaccines.”
Meanwhile, virologist Steven Van Gucht has alerted that a new peak of the COVID-10 infections this autumn is a certainty. That is why keeping people’s immunity at a high level “at strategic times” such as autumn is essential. He shared the information at the stating of September month.
