A vaccine commission in Germany kept its advice against using AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for people over 65 years of age.
A vaccine commission in Germany on Friday maintained its advice against using AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines on people over 65 years of age, despite the EU regulator’s decision to authorize the use of the said vaccine for all adults in the bloc over 18 years old.
The commission — known as STIKO — said in an updated version of its advice that because of currently available data, the COVID-19 vaccine by AstraZeneca was recommended only for people aged 18-64 years old.
According to the commission, the reason was that there’s currently insufficient data on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines on people above 65 years old.
In a report on Manila Bulletin, the advice by the panel of medical experts would be taken into account by the government as it officially draws up its decree on the usage of the COVID-19 vaccine.
As per the report, the restriction recommended by STIKO had raised a debate in Germany over whether there needs to be a change in the order of who could get vaccinated first.
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Germany was currently prioritizing older age groups, but questions had been raised about whether AstraZeneca’s vaccine jabs should immediately be offered to workers in essential jobs such as police officers teachers.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the AstraZeneca vaccine “appeared ineffective” for people over 65 years of age.
According to him, there was “very little information” available for the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine.
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