Vaccine effectiveness against severe COVID-19 during the Omicron wave in Germany: results from the COViK study

Abstract

Purpose COViK, a prospective hospital-based multicenter case-control study in Germany, aims to assess the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against severe disease. Here, we report vaccine effectiveness (VE) against COVID-19-caused hospitalization and intensive care treatment during the Omicron wave. Methods We analyzed data from 276 cases with COVID-19 and 494 control patients recruited in 13 hospitals from 1 December 2021 to 5 September 2022. We calculated crude and confounder-adjusted VE estimates. Results 21% of cases (57/276) were not vaccinated, compared to 5% of controls (26/494; p < 0.001). Confounder-adjusted VE against COVID-19-caused hospitalization was 55.4% (95% CI: 12–78%), 81.5% (95% CI: 68–90%) and 95.6% (95%CI: 88–99%) after two, three and four vaccine doses, respectively. VE against hospitalization due to COVID-19 remained stable up to one year after three vaccine doses. Conclusion Three vaccine doses remained highly effective in preventing severe disease and this protection was sustained; a fourth dose further increased protection.

A bead-based multiplex assay covering all coronaviruses pathogenic for humans for sensitive and specific surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 humoral immunity

“…Our sample panel consisted of 54 paired samples from 27 patients with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections, mainly infected with the Delta or Omicron variants based on the time points of infection ranging between 2021/08/09 and 2022/02/23. The panel contained patients hospitalised for severe SARS-CoV-2 infections with or without previous vaccination history from a study to monitor vaccine efficacy 59 , 60 . Serum was collected at two time points: either from 0 to 6 days after onset of symptoms (early time point), or at least 17 days up to 99 days after onset of symptoms (late time points).…”

“…The assay was thoroughly validated against six commercial assays and the “gold standard”, the VNT, performed in the consultant laboratory for coronaviruses in Germany. Due to its excellent performance with regards to sensitivity and specificity the assay has, besides the examples shown here, already been used in epidemiological settings as well as clinical studies 59 , 77 , 78 . Despite the large number of publications describing serological assays for SARS-CoV-2, we believe that our work can still contribute to the body of scientific literature for several reasons.…”

Application of the screening method for estimating COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness using routine surveillance data: Germany’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, July 2021 to March 2023

“…Depending on the frequency of data collection, as well as the clinical outcome of interest, VE estimates can be calculated and reported quickly, allowing for monitoring of trends in VE over time among different population groups with only minimal time lag, as was the case in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other methods that were used to estimate VE in Germany, such as case–control studies and cohort studies, could report results with long-time lags only and required significantly greater resources; they, therefore, focused on specific clinical outcomes or population groups [ 11 , 28 ]. This is in contrast to countries such as England and Israel that could utilise already available national health register or health insurance data to rapidly assess population-wide VE without requiring significant resources [ 27 , 29 ].…”

Real life experience on the use of Remdesivir in patients admitted to COVID-19 in two referral Italian hospital: a propensity score matched analysis

“…Remdesivir was administered intravenously in: a. patients hospitalized for pneumonia due to COVID-19, needing non-invasive ventilation; b. patients having some comorbidities (e.g., type 2 diabetes, cancer) that can increase the risk of severe COVID-19 forms. These indications follow the national guidelines available at the time of inclusion 2 . According to local protocol, all the patients received 200 mg of Remdesivir on the first day, followed by 100 mg once daily for the subsequent 9 days, 4 days, or 2 days as a maintenance dose, for a total of 10, 5, or 3 days of treatment.…”