French President Emmanuel Macron (L) is taking photos with his smartphone from a document held by German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) during an EU summit in Brussels on 20 July 2020.
JOHN THYS | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON – European officials come under increasing pressure to reverse restrictions on who can receive the AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine and boost support for the shot.
On Monday, France took a turn with previous clues as to who could receive the vaccine, and now the AstraZeneca shot is recommended for anyone under 75 (versus a previous age limit of 65), including those with pre-existing health problems.
Italy, Sweden and Poland have implemented similar age-restrictive guidelines on who can receive the AstraZeneca survey, but the move from France has raised expectations that they can also follow suit and offer the sting to older age groups.
A well-known immunologist in Germany earlier this week called on his country to change its position, and this is in line with other health experts in the country. In an interview with the BBC, Carsten Watzl, head of the German Society for Immunology, urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to take the vaccine live on TV to show that it is safe.
Watzl’s comments come amid tensions over the EU’s slow explosion of vaccines and growing hesitation over the AstraZeneca shot. In addition, parts of Europe are struggling to ward off a third-wave infection, which is mainly caused by the spread of more infectious variants, which make vaccine use more urgent.
German criticism
The Vaccination Committee of Germany has indicated that it will review its previous guidance and provide an update soon. The head of the committee, Thomas Mertens, told broadcaster ZDF on Friday that it is possible that the vaccine could also be cleaned for the 65-year-old.
He also defended the committee against criticism that it was too critical of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid reports that thousands of doses in Germany and beyond in Europe will be unused due to public fear (and misunderstanding) about it.
“We never criticized the vaccine, but only the lack of data for the age group older than 65,” Mertens said. However, he conceded that public messages about the vaccine had ‘somehow gone wrong’.
Leading health experts in France also denied the accusation of ‘AstraZeneca bashing’ and the French Minister of Health, Olivier Veran, went so far as to make the recording appear live on TV.
What went wrong?
The European Medicines Agency, the European Medicines Agency, has approved the vaccine developed by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant and the University of Oxford in January, but the health regulators of France and Germany, including in Europe, only approved the vaccine. approved for younger than 65 years. that there was not enough evidence to prove the efficacy of the vaccine in the older age group.
This hesitation led to a faint recording of the shot by the public. The news agency AFP reported on Monday that only 273,000 doses of AstraZeneca were administered in France out of 1.7 million received at the end of February, citing figures from the Ministry of Health. Last week, the German Ministry of Health said it had fired only 15% of the Oxford shots it had available, Reuters reported.
The public sentiment was not helped by somewhat ambivalent comments from some senior European officials.
French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, was quoted in January as telling journalists that the AstraZeneca vaccine was ‘quasi-effective’ for people over 65 and Merkel, 66, insinuated she was too old to chance, against data and experts in. showing that the vaccine is safe and effective for those over 65 years of age.
The position of France and Germany apparently ignored the leadership of the EMA, which stated that the data show that the vaccine is effective for all people over 65, the main target group for vaccines with higher risk factors of Covid-19 associated with older age keep.
Since the authorization of the EMA, a growing amount of clinical trials and actual data regarding older age groups have shown that the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine is highly effective in preventing Covid-19 infection, hospitalizations and deaths.
It has also been shown to reduce the transmission of the virus, and the UK’s decision to delay the second dose of the vaccine, to provide more initial protection to more people, is also effective. The UK has now vaccinated more than 20 million people with a first dose of coronavirus vaccine. According to official data, Germany has so far vaccinated just over 6.3 million people (of which 4.2 million people received the first dose). According to the latest data from Sunday, France has given at least one dose of the vaccine to almost 3 million people.
Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said on Tuesday that real data from Britain should be used to inform decision-making in other European countries.
Asked whether other countries should look at England’s real world public health data, Pollard said: “I think the scientific committees in each of these countries will do exactly that in the coming days,” he told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program said. .
“The strong evidence we are seeing now … it is being obtained by scientific committees in different countries, and I am sure it will help support their decision making,” he added.