AstraZeneca vaccination resumed today… Excluding under 30 years old

Input 2021.04.12 07:38

Vaccination for AstraZeneca’s novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), which has been delayed for a while due to controversy about the occurrence of blood clots, will resume on the 12th.

According to the Corona 19 Vaccination Response Promotion Team on the day, the government will resume the AstraZeneca vaccination, which has been partially withheld or postponed since that day.

According to the government’s policy, about 142,000 people, including special school workers, kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school health teachers, and workers in infection-prone facilities, who were originally scheduled to receive the vaccine on the 8th to 9th, will receive the AstraZeneca vaccine from this day. About 38,000 people under the age of 60, whose vaccinations were temporarily withheld, are also expected to be vaccinated again.

Previously, after vaccinating the AstraZeneca vaccine, especially in Europe, specific symptoms of blood clots were reported one after another. Accordingly, the promotion team withheld vaccination as a preventive measure, and finally decided to resume vaccination that day after expert discussion.

It is based on the opinions of experts that it is important to proceed with vaccination without disruption above all in a situation where the risk of Corona 19 continues. In particular, the fact that cases of’cerebral venous sinus thrombosis’ (CVST) and’visceral venous thrombosis’, which are rare thrombosis problems in Europe, have not yet occurred in Korea, also affected.

According to the promotion team, there were three reports of blood clots after vaccination in Korea as well, but two of them were not recognized for causality with the vaccine. In the other case, causality was acknowledged, but platelet reduction, a typical symptom of rare thrombosis, did not appear, so it did not fit the definition of a side effect case previously recognized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

However, the committee saw that the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine requires’age restrictions’. Therefore, among those who are eligible for vaccination from April to June this year, those under the age of 30 were excluded from the vaccination. This is because a comparison of the potential benefits and risks from AstraZeneca vaccination by age group shows that the risk-to-risk benefits are not high for those under the age of 30.

However, there are concerns that the government’s decision will disrupt the vaccination plan. Of the 2.38 million people under the age of 65 among those who were vaccinated in April to June this year, 27% of those under the age of 30 were about 640,000. They will have to get a different vaccine, but a specific vaccination plan has not yet been confirmed. The day before, promotion manager Jung Eun-kyung said, “It is a situation that we need to prepare a complementary plan for what vaccines to be released and at what times, depending on the situation of vaccine supply and introduction.”

The only product that can fit them right now is the Pfizer vaccine, but the quantity is not enough. In addition, while major European countries such as Germany and France recommend AstraZeneca vaccination only to the elderly, such as 55, 60, and 65 years of age, there are voices of concern over the exclusion of vaccination being under the age of 30.