TORONTO (AP) – The health minister of Canada’s most populous province said on Tuesday seniors in Ontario will not receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as there is limited data on its effectiveness in older populations.
Health Minister Christine Elliott said Ontario plans to follow the advice of a national panel recommended against the use of the newly approved vaccine on people 65 and older.
She said that anyone older than that age is recommended to receive the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine.
The Canadian regulator approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca last week for all adults, including the elderly, but the National Immunization Advisory Committee said this week that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are preferred for the elderly because of ‘proposed superior efficacy’.
Health authorities in France and Germany and other countries have also expressed concern that AstraZeneca has not tested the vaccine in enough older people to prove that it works for them, and have indicated that they do not recommend it for people over 65.
Belgium only granted this to people aged 55 and under.
France said this week that it would allow people over the age of 65 to receive the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, after it was initially restricted to younger populations due to limited data on the drug’s effectiveness.
Last month, South Africa scaled back its planned rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine and instead used an unlicensed shot from Johnson & Johnson for its health workers.
The Canadian Pacific Coast province, British Columbia, meanwhile plans to delay the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine by up to four months.
Ontario and Alberta are also considering following the province’s leadership.
Dr Bonnie Henry, British Columbia Provincial Health Officer, said the decision was made in the context of limited supply and based on strong local and international data.
“It makes sense to us because we know it’s a critical time with the limited amount of vaccines we have in the coming weeks to be able to provide the protection … to everyone here,” Henry said.
Chief Scientific Adviser Mona Nemer told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that British Columbia’s plan amounts to a “population-level experiment” and that the data provided so far by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech is based on an interval of three to four weeks between doses.
Henry said the manufacturers structured their clinical trials to get the vaccines on the market as quickly as possible, but research in BC, Quebec, Israel and the United Kingdom has shown that first doses are very effective.
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