The German vaccine commission said that AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine should not be used in people 65 and older due to “insufficient data” about its effectiveness.
The Standing Vaccine Commission said the injection, which is being developed with the University of Oxford, should only be used on people aged 18 to 64 “on the basis of available data”.
“Currently, there is insufficient data to assess the vaccine’s effectiveness for people aged 65 and over,” said the panel of scientific experts.
The recommendation follows the confusion earlier this week about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine in adults over 65.
Two German newspapers, citing government sources, said the shot was found to be as low as 8 percent effective on the elderly – what the UK-based company said was “completely incorrect,” German broadcaster Deutsch Welle said on Tuesday. market.
“In November, we published data in The Lancet showing that older adults showed strong immune responses to the vaccine, with 100% of older adults generating specific antibodies to the peak after the second dose,” said the AstraZeneca spokesman.
The surprising statistic was also refuted by the German Ministry of Health, which suggested that the leaks mixed the figure by 8 percent.
“At first glance, it appears that two things were confused in the reports: about 8% of the individuals in the AstraZeneca effectiveness study were between 56 and 69 years old, and only 3 to 4% were over 70 years old,” Said a spokesman.
“However, this does not imply an efficacy of only 8% in the elderly.”
The European Medicines Agency is due to decide whether to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine on Friday.
Wired Poles