posted by mike kraft
on Fri, 2021-01-29 10:01
(CNN) German health officials have advised against giving the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to people older than 65 years because they believe there is insufficient data on the effectiveness of the vaccine for this age group.
The German vaccine watchdog isn't worried the vaccine poses a threat to older people. It simply argued that the number of older people participating in the clinical trials wasn't large enough to make conclusions regarding efficacy and safety in the elderly.
Responding to the announcement, AstraZeneca, which developed the vaccine with the University of Oxford, said the latest analyses of clinical trial data "support efficacy in the over 65 years age group."
The announcement by Germany raised eyebrows because the United Kingdom, whose regulator approved the AstraZeneca vaccine nearly a month ago, has been inoculating people older than 65 with the shot. The chief executive of the UK medicines regulator, Dr. June Raine, said data so far shows "a strong immune response in the over-65s."
The news also came at a sensitive time. The European Union, of which Germany is an influential member, and AstraZeneca have been locked in a dispute over delays in the supply of the vaccine to the bloc. The spat quickly escalated and as a result, the European Commission is expected to announce tighter regulations on vaccine exports, requiring companies wanting to export coronavirus vaccines from the bloc to notify national governments and wait for authorization. ...
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