Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines administered in the 2023 autumnal campaigns in Europe: Results from the VEBIS primary care test-negative design study, September 2023–January 2024
Charlotte Lanièce Delaunay, Aryse Melo, Marine Maurel, Clara Mazagatos, Luise Goerlitz, Joan O’Donnell, Beatrix Oroszi, Noémie Sève, Ana Paula Rodrigues, Iván Martínez‐Baz, Adam Meijer, Ivan Mlinarić, Neus Latorre‐Margalef, Mihaela Lazăr, Gloria Pérez‐Gimeno, Ralf Dürrwald, Charlene Bennett, Gergő Túri, Marie‐Anne Rameix‐Welti, Raquel Guiomar, Jesús Castilla, Mariëtte Hooiveld, Sanja Filipović, Tove Samuelsson Hagey, Frederika Dijkstra, Vítor Borges, Violeta Ramos Marín, Sabrina Bacci, Marlena Kaczmarek, Esther Kissling
Abstract
In autumn 2023, European vaccination campaigns predominantly administered XBB.1.5 vaccine. In a European multicentre study, we estimated 2023 COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness (VE) against laboratory-confirmed symptomatic infection at primary care level between September 2023 and January 2024. Using a test-negative case-control design, we estimated VE in the target group for COVID-19 vaccination overall and by time since vaccination. We included 1057 cases and 4397 controls. Vaccine effectiveness was 40 % (95 % CI: 26-53 %) overall, 48 % (95 % CI: 31-61 %) among those vaccinated < 6 weeks of onset and 29 % (95 % CI: 3-49 %) at 6-14 weeks. Our results suggest that COVID-19 vaccines administered to target groups during the autumn 2023 campaigns showed clinically significant effectiveness against laboratory-confirmed, medically attended symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection in the 3 months following vaccination. A longer study period will allow for further variant-specific COVID-19 VE estimates, better understanding decline in VE and informing booster administration policies.