French President Emmanuel Macron (L) takes photos with his smartphone of a document in the possession of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) during an EU summit in Brussels on July 20, 2020.
JOHN THYS | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON – European officials are under increasing pressure to remove restrictions on who can receive the AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine and to mobilize support for the injection.
On Monday, France reversed previous guidelines on who can receive the vaccine, and now recommends the AstraZeneca injection to anyone under 75 (from an earlier age limit of 65), including those with pre-existing health problems.
Italy, Sweden and Poland have implemented similar age-restricting guidelines on who can receive the AstraZeneca injection, but France’s move has raised expectations that they too could follow suit and offer the shot to older age groups.
A renowned immunologist in Germany called on his country to change its position earlier this week, echoing comments from other health experts in the country. Speaking with the BBC, Carsten Watzl, head of the German Immunology Association, urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to bring the vaccine live on TV to show it’s safe.
Watzl’s comments come amid tensions over the slow rollout of vaccines in the EU and growing hesitation over the AstraZeneca shot. In addition, parts of Europe are fighting to stave off a third wave of infections, largely caused by the spread of more contagious variants, making vaccine use more urgent.
German criticism
The German Vaccination Commission has indicated that it is reviewing its previous guidelines and may release an update soon. The head of the committee, Thomas Mertens, told broadcaster ZDF on Friday that it was “possible” that the vaccine could also be approved for people over 65.
He also defended the committee against criticism that it had been overly critical of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid reports that thousands of doses went unused in Germany and beyond in Europe, due to public concern (and misunderstanding) about it.
“We have never criticized the vaccine, we have only criticized the lack of data for the over-65s,” Mertens said. He admitted, however, that public coverage of the vaccine had “somehow gone wrong.”
Prominent health experts in France have also denounced what has been described as “AstraZeneca bashing” and French Health Minister Olivier Veran went so far as to get the recording live on TV.
What went wrong?
The European drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, 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, approved the vaccine only for children under 65 years of age. saying there was not enough evidence to prove the vaccine’s effectiveness in the higher age group.
That hesitation has resulted in poor public take-up of the shot. The AFP news agency reported on Monday that only 273,000 AstraZeneca doses had been administered in France out of the 1.7 million received at the end of February, citing figures from the Ministry of Health. Last week, Germany’s Health Ministry said it had only administered 15% of the available Oxford shots, Reuters reported.
Public sentiment was not stimulated 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, who is 66, insinuated that she is too old to take the chance, contrary to data and experts showing that the vaccine is safe and effective for people over 65.
France and Germany’s position seemed to ignore EMA guidelines stating that data showed the vaccine to be effective for anyone over the age of 65, the main target population for vaccines with higher risk factors of Covid-19 associated with older age .
Since EMA approval, a growing body of data from both clinical studies and real-life data with older age groups has 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 transmission of the virus and the UK’s decision to delay the second dose of the vaccine, in an effort to provide more people with initial protection, has also proven effective. The UK has now vaccinated more than 20 million people with a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. According to official data, Germany has so far vaccinated just over 6.3 million people (4.2 million of which have received a first dose). France has given at least one dose of the vaccine to nearly 3 million people, according to the latest data on Sunday.
Oxford Vaccine Group director Andrew Pollard said on Tuesday that real-world data from Britain should be used to inform decision-making in other countries in Europe.
Asked if other countries should look at real world data from Public Health England, Pollard said, “I think the scientific committees in each of these countries will be doing just that for the next few days,” he told BBC Radio 4’s “Today”. -program. .
“The strength of the evidence we see now … that everything is being approached by scientific committees in different countries, and I’m sure it will help support their decision-making,” he added.