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Multicenter Study
. 2025 Nov;19(11):e70191.
doi: 10.1111/irv.70191.

COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Against Hospitalization in Older Adults, VEBIS Hospital Network, Europe, September 2024-May 2025

Madelyn Rojas-Castro  1 , Nuno Verdasca  2 , Susana Monge  3 , Laurane De Mot  4 , Camino Trobajo-Sanmartín  5 , Róisín Duffy  6 , Gergő Túri  7 , Monika Kuliese  8 , Ralf Duerrwald  9 , Maria-Louise Borg  10 , Odette Popovici  11 , Verónica Gomez  12 , Zvjezdana Lovrić Makarić  13 , Odile Launay  14 , Diogo F P Marques  1 , Francisco Pozo  15 , Arne Witdouck  16 , Iván Martínez-Baz  5 , Margaret Fitzgerald  6 , Beatrix Oroszi  7 , Ligita Jančorienė  17 , Silke Buda  9 , Ausra Dziugyte  10 , Mihaela Lazăr  18 , Ausenda Machado  12 , Irena Tabain  19 , Liem Binh Luong Nguyen  14 , Eva Rivas Wagner  20 , François Dufrasne  21 , Jesús Castilla  5 , Lisa Domegan  6 , Viktória Velkey  7 , Fausta Majauskaite  17 , Carolin Hackmann  22 , Nathalie Nicolay  23 , Sabrina Bacci  23 , Angela M C Rose  1
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Against Hospitalization in Older Adults, VEBIS Hospital Network, Europe, September 2024-May 2025

Madelyn Rojas-Castro et al. Influenza Other Respir Viruses. 2025 Nov.

Abstract

We estimated COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness (VE) against PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 hospitalization in patients ≥ 60 years with severe acute respiratory infection, using a multicenter, test-negative, case-control study across seven sites in six European countries between September 2024 and May 2025. We included 352 cases (115 vaccinated; 33%) and 9980 controls (5024 vaccinated; 50%). VE was 42% (95% CI: 15; 61) 14-59 days post-vaccination, 32% (95% CI: -1; 54) at 60-119 days, and 36% (95% CI: 2; 60) at 120-179 days, and no effect thereafter. Among adults aged 60-79 and ≥ 80 years, we observed moderate VE against COVID-19 hospitalization for up to 2 and 4 months, respectively.

Keywords: case–control study; elderly; severe acute respiratory infection (SARI); test‐negative design; vaccine effectiveness.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ligita Jančorienė has received honoraria fees for lectures from Pfizer, Viatris, Swixx Biopharma. All other authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Countries and study sitesa included in the VEBIS hospital network and in the analysis, Europe, September 29, 2024–May 4, 2025. VEBIS: Vaccine Effectiveness, Burden and Impact Studies. (a) Twelve participating sites: Belgium (BE), Croatia (HR), France (FR), Germany (DE), Hungary (HU), Ireland (IE), Lithuania (LT), Malta (MT), Navarre region Spain (NA), Portugal (PT), Spain (ES), and Romania (RO). Sites included in analysis: BE, DE, HU, IE, LT, NA, and ES.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Vaccine effectiveness of COVID‐19 vaccines against hospitalization among patients with SARI, by time since vaccination (60‐day cut‐offs) and by age group (≥ 60, 60–79, and ≥ 80 years old), autumn 2024 vaccination campaign, VEBIS hospital study, Europe, September 29, 2024–May 4, 2025 (n = 10332). CI: confidence interval, IQR: interquartile range, TSV: time since vaccination (days from the last COVID‐19 vaccination dose to symptom onset), VE: vaccine effectiveness, grey shading: any time since vaccination.
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