A lab technician handles vials of the Covid-19 vaccine from the University of Oxford.
VINCENZO PINTO | AFP | Getty Images
Swedish-British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is fighting battles on several fronts this week – defending its coronavirus vaccine from reports that it could be less effective in protecting the elderly and facing growing tensions with the EU due to the delay in supply to the bloc.
On Monday, the drugmaker defended its vaccine from reports in several German newspapers, Bild and Handelsblatt, that the AstraZeneca vaccine, created in conjunction with the University of Oxford, had a low rate of effectiveness (less than 10% and 8%, according to the newspapers said, respectively) in the age group above 65 years, the main target group to receive the vaccine, as they are at greater risk of serious diseases and death.
Both cited unnamed German government officials, saying the vaccine had a low efficacy rate among people over 65 and said it could affect whether the vaccine is authorized for use among the elderly.
AstraZeneca responded on Monday evening, saying in a statement to CNBC: “Reports that the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine is as low as 8% in adults over 65 are completely incorrect.”
“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 for the peak after the second dose,” he added.
He said the UK’s Joint Vaccination and Immunization Committee, which advises the government on its vaccination strategy, supported the use of the vaccine in the elderly.
Elderly trial participants were later admitted to phase three of the AstraZeneca vaccine clinical trials, which took place in the UK and Brazil, and previously in South Africa, and therefore less data is available on the effectiveness of the injection in people over 65 years old. Initial tests in the United Kingdom focused on children under 55 to see whether the vaccine was effective for most health professionals.
When AstraZeneca published its test results in the medical journal The Lancet in December, she said: “since older age groups were recruited later than younger age groups, there was less time for case accumulation and, as a result, efficacy data in these cohorts is currently limited by the small number of cases, but additional data will be available in future analyzes. “CNBC contacted AstraZeneca for comments after the reports.
As early as Tuesday morning, the German health ministry said there was no data to suggest that the AstraZeneca vaccine was only 8% effective among the elderly, Reuters reported.
Supply problems
Tensions have been building since last week, when the drugmaker announced that production problems would mean it would deliver far fewer doses to the EU than previously promised. The vast majority of the AstraZeneca vaccine for distribution in the EU is being produced in the United Kingdom
The EU should receive 80 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine by March, according to an unidentified senior official who spoke to Reuters last Friday, but the drugmaker informed the EU that the supply of doses would be reduced to around 31 million of doses, a cut of about 60%.
“This new timetable is not acceptable to the European Union,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides in a statement on Monday, signaling that the EU could tighten the rules on Covid-19 vaccine exports.
“The European Union will take all necessary measures to protect its citizens and rights,” she noted, having previously stated that “in the future, all companies that produce Covid-19 vaccines in the EU will have to provide advance notification whenever they wish to export. vaccines for third countries. “
Any limitations on EU vaccine exports could affect the supply of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, which is manufactured in Belgium, to the United Kingdom
Commissioner Kyriakides said on Monday that discussions with AstraZeneca representatives “resulted in dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity and insufficient explanations”.
She added that “EU Member States are united: vaccine developers have social and contractual responsibilities that they need to respect”. The EU asked AstraZeneca to provide a detailed vaccine distribution plan and when the distribution will take place, with further discussions scheduled for Wednesday.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has not yet been approved for use by the European Medicines Agency, but Kyriakdes said it could come by the end of the week.
The concern about AstraZeneca’s supplies comes in addition to one from Pfizer and BioNTech, which also warned in mid-January about the temporary reduction in production while they increased their production capacity.
The scarcity of supply is a serious blow to the EU, whose vaccination campaign has already started (on 27 December) later than in the United Kingdom and the USA
The EU bought vaccines as a bloc (although some countries have also made their own unilateral agreements) with vaccines scheduled to be distributed based on population size, but vaccination implementations in individual countries, including Germany, have been very slow until now.