Long-term effectiveness of an ultra-rapid rollout vaccination campaign with BNT162b2 on the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Lena Tschiderer; Hanna Innerhofer; Lisa Seekircher; Lisa Waltle; Lukas Richter; Janine Kimpel; Cornelia Lass-Flörl; Lukas Forer; Sebastian Schönherr; David A Larsen; Florian Krammer; Sabine Embacher-Aichhorn; Herbert Tilg; Günter Weiss; Franz Allerberger; Peter Willeit

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2024.111117

Long-term effectiveness of an ultra-rapid rollout vaccination campaign with BNT162b2 on the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection

iScience. 2024 Oct 10;27(11):111117. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111117. eCollection 2024 Nov 15.

Authors

Lena Tschiderer¹, Hanna Innerhofer¹, Lisa Seekircher¹, Lisa Waltle¹, Lukas Richter², Janine Kimpel³, Cornelia Lass-Flörl⁴, Lukas Forer⁵, Sebastian Schönherr⁵, David A Larsen⁶, Florian Krammer^{7

8

9

10}, Sabine Embacher-Aichhorn¹¹, Herbert Tilg¹², Günter Weiss¹³, Franz Allerberger², Peter Willeit^{1

10

14}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Clinical Epidemiology, Public Health, Health Economics, Medical Statistics and Informatics, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
² Institute of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, 1220 Vienna, Austria.
³ Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
⁴ Institute of Hygiene and Medical Microbiology, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
⁵ Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
⁶ Department of Public Health, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA.
⁷ Department of Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
⁸ Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness (C-VaRPP), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
⁹ Department of Pathology, Molecular and Cell-Based Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁰ Ignaz Semmelweis Institute, Interuniversity Institute for Infection Research, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
¹¹ Clinical Trial Center, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
¹² Department of Internal Medicine I, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
¹³ Department of Internal Medicine II, Infectious Diseases, Immunology, Pneumology and Rheumatology, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
¹⁴ Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB1 8RN, UK.

Abstract

In 2021, an ultra-rapid rollout vaccination campaign in the Schwaz district, Tyrol, Austria, delivered the COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 to 66.9% of eligible residents (dose 1: March 11-16, dose 2: April 8-13). Alongside the campaign, we recruited 11,955 residents into the prospective study REDUCE, of whom 3,859 participated in a booster vaccination initiative (November 20-28, 2021). Over a 24-month follow-up, 1,672 participants had incident RT-PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2. Compared to other Tyrolean districts, effectiveness in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infection at months 1-9 versus months 10-24 was 81.6% (95% CI 80.0-83.2%; hazard ratio 0.18 [0.17-0.20]) versus 38.2% (35.8-40.6%; 0.62 [0.59-0.64]) among REDUCE participants, and 22.5% (20.5-24.4%; 0.78 [0.76-0.80]) versus 17.0% (16.2-17.8%; 0.83 [0.82-0.84]) in the entire Schwaz district, with substantial variability during follow-up. By March 2023, 61% of Schwaz residents had received booster vaccination versus 55% in other Tyrolean districts. Consequently, vaccinating individuals at high pace effectively reduced SARS-CoV-2 infections and achieved higher vaccination coverage.

Keywords: Health sciences; Public health; Virology.