“Germany, 65+ AstraZeneca likely to be approved soon”

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Jae-young Lee = There are observations that Germany may sooner or later grant the AstraZeneca-Oxford University new coronavirus infection (Corona 19) vaccination to people over 65.

According to the British Guardian on the 27th (local time), Thomas Mertens, chairman of the immunization committee at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), a German disease control agency, appeared on ZDF the day before and said there is a possibility that the elderly may also get the AstraZeneca vaccine. “We will release updated new recommendations soon.”

He said he was waiting for details of a recent study in Scotland.

Earlier, researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland reported that the risk of hospitalization was reduced by about 90% after 4 weeks of AstraZeneca vaccination.

On the 28th of last month, the vaccination committee recommended that the AstraZeneca vaccine be given only to those aged 18 to 64 years old. This was due to the lack of data on clinical trials for those over 65 years of age.

In addition to Germany, France, Belgium, and Sweden limit AstraZeneca vaccination targets to those under the age of 65 for the same reason.

Unlike these, in the UK, people over 65 are also vaccinated against the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Earlier, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) also recommended to the European Commission to approve the conditional sale of AstraZeneca vaccine on the 29th of last month, setting only a lower limit of’over 18′ and not an upper limit, and the recommendation was accepted in hours done.

On the 10th of this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Strategic Advisory Group (SAGE) recommended that the AstraZeneca vaccine can be used by anyone over 18 years of age, and the WHO approved emergency use five days later.

Canada also approved the AstraZeneca vaccine on the 26th of this month, setting the age to only ’18 years or older’, with no upper limit.

Germany has a stock of AstraZeneca vaccine and is not being used properly.

According to the Guardian, Germany has actually received only about 360,000 doses, about a quarter of the 1.4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine currently supplied.

Germany’s AstraZeneca vaccine is the top priority target for vaccination, and it is estimated that two-thirds of those under the age of 65 have already been vaccinated, and the rest do not want to be vaccinated.

Chairman Mertens said, “I have not criticized the AstraZeneca vaccine itself, but only criticized the lack of data on the group over 65,” and admitted that this distinction may have caused losses to the public.

“Everything is going wrong anyway,” he added.

Continental European countries such as the UK, Germany and France had a nervous war over AstraZeneca vaccination age and supply shortage.

When the supply of AstraZeneca vaccine was delayed at the end of last month, the EU threatened not to send the vaccine produced in Europe to the UK. Since then, the EU has stepped back to criticism from the international community including WHO.

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2021/02/28 07:36 sent