A top official of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has suggested ditching the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine for all age groups, especially where alternatives are available, according to Medical Xpress.
In an interview published Sunday, Marco Cavaleri, the EMA’s head of vaccine strategy, told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper that the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) should be preferentially used for people above 60.
AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines are approved for use in people aged 18 and above but have faced suspension due to reports of rare blood clots.
The European Union has also approved two mRNA-based vaccines – Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
On Saturday, Italy restricted the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to people aged 60 and above over safety concerns.
Cavaleri was asked if it would not be a better option to ban AstraZeneca jab including for people over 60. He said, “Yes, and it is an option that many countries, such as France and Germany, are considering in the light of the increased availability of mRNA vaccines.”
“However, incidents were very rare and after the first dose,” he added. “It is true that there is less data on the second dose, but in the United Kingdom, it (the vaccination program) is going well. Among young people, the risks of illness decrease, and the message for them could be to use preferentially the mRNA vaccines, but the choice is left to individual states.”
Cavaleri noted that the one-dose J&J vaccine has “fewer problems than AstraZeneca.” He said, “With one dose, it is useful for some categories that are difficult to reach, but it remains an adenovirus (vaccine) and it is preferable to reserve it for the over 60s.”
The EMA said on Twitter, “Misinformation is making the rounds today. This is the situation: Benefit/risk balance of AstraZeneca #COVID19 vaccine is positive and it remains authorized for all populations.”
Meanwhile, South Africa, which has entered a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, said Sunday it will stop distributing two million doses of the J&J vaccine after contamination concerns at one of the manufacturing sites.
On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told J&J that millions of doses manufactured at the group’s Emergent BioSolutions facility in the city of Baltimore were not suitable for use, according to Medical Xpress. The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) said it had decided “not to release vaccine produced using the drug substance batches that were not suitable.”
