On November 9, 2026, Leif Erik Sander was a guest on ZDF-Morgenmagazin. He is a principal investigator in TRR 418 and Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Critical Care Medicine at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. He talked about the start of the flu season and how best to protect yourself against respiratory infections and their complications.

Everyday measures like washing your hands and wearing a mask around sick people help. But the annual flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine protect best, especially for older people and for people with pre-existing conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer or lung disease. There is little evidence for many home remedies and vitamin supplements, while getting enough sleep does help.

Many people don’t know that a flu vaccine can even lower the risk of heart attack and stroke. Even so, Germany uses this cheap and effective prevention far too little, and vaccination rates are well below the EU target of 75 percent.

Within TRR 418, Sander co-leads project A01. It looks at how the time of day of a vaccination shapes the immune response, with the goal of finding the best time to vaccinate.