PARIS – French President Emmanual Macron said on Friday that the vaccine against AstraZeneca coronavirus appeared to be ‘quasi-ineffective’ for people over 65 – hours before EU drug regulator approved it for use in all adults.
“The real problem with AstraZeneca is that it does not work as we expected,” Macron told a group of reporters, including POLITICO, in Paris. ‘We are waiting for the EMA [European Medicines Agency] results, but today all indications are that it is almost ineffective in people over 65, some say those who are 60 or older. ‘
Later that day, the EMA gave the vaccine the green light. It is stated: “There are not yet enough results in older participants (older than 55 years) to give a figure for how well the vaccine will work in this group. However, protection is expected as an immune response in this age and group based on experience with other vaccines; as there is reliable safety information in this population, EMA scientists believe that the vaccine can be used in older adults. “
German experts said on Thursday that people aged 65 and over should not get the AstraZeneca coronavirus jab, which is giving European vaccination efforts another go. The draft recommendation from a committee advising the country’s public health institute said more information was needed to determine the vaccine’s effectiveness in this age group.
AstraZeneca rejected the opinion of the German experts, saying that the latest analysis of clinical trial data in fact supports the efficacy of those over 65 and that the information is expected to be published by the EMA in the coming days. A spokesman added that reports of low efficacy in adults older than 65 ‘are not an accurate reflection of the totality of the data. ‘
Macron said problems with the AstraZeneca sample would complicate the vaccination strategy in the EU, as it is largely based on the priority of vaccination of the senior population and health workers. He said another unforeseen twist was that the vaccines that are more complicated to produce and store – those based on mRNA technology never before used to make a vaccine – look the best.
“What no one foresaw, which is wonderful and one of the aspects of this crisis, is that the vaccines that worked best were the most complicated … which means that in this crisis we say that the Twingo is taking longer to to produce like the Tesla we have never manufactured before, ” he said, comparing the basic Renault model to Tesla’s electric car.
Although France is home to the Pasteur Institute, which cracked the HIV virus and was named after the inventor of the rabies vaccine, and other Big Pharma companies such as Sanofi, no French laboratory has yet approved COVID-19. vaccine is not manufactured.
Macron questions the strategy of some countries, including the United Kingdom, to prioritize a first dose of a vaccine whose efficacy is based on two doses taken within 28 days.
‘When we look at the UK’s strategy, I’m not the commentator on others’ strategy, but we must now be very careful about the way we compare vaccine strategies. The goal is not to have the largest number of first injections, ‘he said.
“If you have all the medical agencies and the industrialists who say you need two injections to make it work, it’s a maximum of 28 days apart, which is the case with Pfizer / BioNTech. And you have countries with the vaccination strategy to just “I’m not sure if it’s very serious,” Macron added.
“If I listen to the scientists who say that we accelerate the mutations with just one injection, because the virus adapts … we are lying to people when we tell them that they have been vaccinated by getting one injection of a vaccine that comes out two injections exist. “
The vaccination campaign in France started slowly compared to most EU countries and the UK, which placed it near the bottom of the rankings, although it has increased its speed in recent weeks.