PARIS – French President Emmanual Macron said on Friday that the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine appeared to be “almost ineffective” in people over 65 – just hours before the EU drug regulator approved it for use in everyone the adults.
“The real problem with AstraZeneca is that it doesn’t work the way we expected,” Macron told a group of reporters, including POLITICO, in Paris. “We are waiting for the EMA [European Medicines Agency] results, but today everything indicates that it is almost ineffective in people over 65, some say they are 60 years old or more. “
At the end of the day, EMA gave the vaccine the green light. It said: “There are still not enough results in older participants (over 55 years old) to provide a picture of how well the vaccine will work in this group. However, protection is expected, as an immune response is observed at this age group. and based on experience with other vaccines; as there is reliable information on safety in this population, EMA scientific experts have considered that the vaccine can be used in older adults. “
German experts said on Thursday that people 65 and older should not be given the AstraZeneca coronavirus injection, taking another hit at European vaccination efforts. The draft recommendation by a committee that advises the country’s public health institute said that more data is needed to determine the vaccine’s effectiveness in this age group.
AstraZeneca rejected the opinion of German experts, saying that the latest analysis of clinical trial data does indeed support efficacy in people over 65 and that this information should be published by the EMA in the coming days. A spokesman added that reports of effectiveness being low in adults over 65 “are not an accurate reflection of the entire data”.
Macron said that problems with the AstraZeneca vaccine will complicate the vaccination strategy in the EU, since it is based mainly on prioritizing vaccination among the elderly population and health professionals. He said another unforeseen twist was that vaccines that are more complicated to produce and store – those based on mRNA technology that had never been used before to produce a vaccine – are the ones that appear to perform best.
“What nobody predicted, which is wonderful and one aspect of this crisis, is that the vaccines that worked best were the most complicated … meaning that in this crisis, we are saying that Twingo is taking longer to produce than Tesla that we’ve never produced before, “he said, comparing the basic Renault model with the Tesla electric car.
Although France is home to the Pasteur Institute, which deciphered the HIV virus and was named after the inventor of the rabies vaccine, and other large pharmaceutical companies like Sanofi, no French laboratory has yet produced an approved COVID-19 vaccine.
Macron questioned the strategy of some countries, including the United Kingdom, to prioritize a first dose of a vaccine whose effectiveness is based on two doses taken in 28 days.
“If we look at the UK strategy – I am not the commentator on the strategy of others, but we have to be very careful now when comparing vaccine strategies. The goal is not to have as many first injections, ”he said.
“When you have all the medical and industrial agencies that say you need two injections for it to work, with a maximum of 28 days apart, which is the case with Pfizer / BioNTech. And you have countries whose vaccine strategy is to administer just one jab, I’m not sure if it’s very serious, “added Macron.
“When I hear scientists saying that we accelerate mutations with just one injection because the virus adapts … we are lying to people when we tell them that they were vaccinated by receiving an injection of a vaccine that consists of two injections.”
The vaccination campaign in France got off to a slow start compared to most EU and UK countries, putting it near the bottom of the ranking, although it has accelerated in recent weeks.