[Monitoring vaccination coverage in Germany-current status and trends]

Timely and reliable data on the vaccination status of the population are essential for the evaluation of vaccination programs. The analysis of school entry examination data and health claims data from the Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians is the basis for monitoring the vaccination coverage in Germany. These two established and effective systems are supplemented by surveys among special target groups that can provide data on vaccination coverage, acceptance, and intention to be vaccinated.With the data from school entry examinations and health claims, vaccination coverage can only be reported with a delay of 1-2 years. Furthermore, the health claims data are incomplete due to the increasing diversification of vaccination service providers. The need for a complete and timely monitoring of the vaccination coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the limitations of these systems in an emergency situation. Therefore, the temporary Digital Immunization Monitoring (DIM) system for collecting COVID-19 vaccination data was established. With DIM, it was possible to collect COVID-19 vaccination data from all vaccination service providers on a daily basis.With the vision of timely and complete monitoring of vaccination coverage, the integration of vaccination data collection into the German Electronic Reporting and Information System for Infection Protection (DEMIS) is being developed as a uniform reporting infrastructure. In the future, DEMIS will be used to collect timely, pseudonymized, and individual-based vaccination data from all vaccination service providers. This will enable the evaluation of vaccination programs with little delay using complete and high-resolution data as well as the rapid adaptation of vaccination recommendations and communication strategies as needed.