AstraZeneca vaccine should not be given to people over 65, say German health officials

By Nadine Schmidt, Claudia Otto and Laura Smith-Spark | CNN

The German vaccine commission recommended that the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford not be given to people over 65, the German Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

The Standing Committee on Vaccination at the Robert Koch Institute in Germany (RKI), the country’s leading public health authority, concluded that there is insufficient data on the vaccine’s effectiveness for this age group, according to a ministry statement.

“It is not possible to make a statement about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine in people over 65 years of age,” said the statement.

The United Kingdom, whose regulator approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine almost a month ago, has administered doses to people over 65.

The German decision comes amid an ongoing dispute between the European Union and AstraZeneca over delays in delivering its coronavirus vaccine to the bloc.

AstraZeneca said it cannot deliver as many doses as the EU expected, citing production challenges. But the European Commission, which ordered the vaccine on behalf of EU member countries, says this is unacceptable, and the drugmaker must find a way to increase supply.

So far, the EU has ordered 300 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine – which can be approved for use by the European Medicines Agency as early as Friday – with an option to purchase an additional 100 million doses.

Belgian health authorities – at the request of the European Commission – carried out an “inspection” of AstraZeneca’s Belgian production unit on Wednesday “to ensure that the delay in delivering vaccines is in fact due to a production problem at the Belgian unit “, France Dammel, a spokeswoman for Belgian Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke, said in a statement.

“Belgian specialists are analyzing the elements obtained during this inspection visit, together with Dutch, Italian and Spanish specialists,” said Dammel, adding that the report is expected in a few days.

The German government expects the country to face a shortage in the supply of the coronavirus vaccine for at least another 10 weeks, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Thursday amid adverse reactions to the pace of the distribution program for the government vaccine.