Doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine pile up in Europe amid government restrictions

France’s decision was a drastic change from the previous month, when President Emmanuel Macron told reporters that the vaccine was almost ineffective for people over 65, without providing evidence to support his claim. The comments helped to sow doubts in the European Union that still persist.

Germany, Italy and other large European countries continue to restrict the elderly from receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, citing the lack of data on its effectiveness with this age group. And France’s restrictions remain in effect for elderly people without comorbidities.

Result: the company’s vaccine doses increased as European governments refused to distribute vaccines to young people until older groups and priority people, such as medical staff, received the vaccine.

France administered only a quarter of the 1.6 million injections it started receiving from AstraZeneca last month, according to French officials. Italy used only 26% of its supply, while Spain administered 43% of its injections.

In Germany, which used less than a third of its nearly 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca, some states like Bavaria and Saxony decided to donate the doses to neighboring countries severely affected by the virus, instead of letting them languish in storage .

“Many vaccines are still in the refrigerators,” said German Health Minister Jens Spahn last week.

Restrictions on the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine risk undermining an important platform in the continent’s plans to accelerate an implementation that has been slow compared to the so-called mRNA vaccines in the United States and the United Kingdom developed by Moderna Inc.

and the Pfizer alliance Inc.

and BioNTech SE have limited offer in Europe. They also have colder storage requirements than the AstraZeneca vaccine, making them more difficult to administer in pharmacies and other accessible places.

In March, France plans to administer a total of six million shots – more than half of them from AstraZeneca. About three million people, less than 5% of France’s population, have so far received a single dose of any vaccine.

In the United Kingdom, where the AstraZeneca vaccine was widely distributed, more than 20 million people, or 30% of its population, received at least one vaccine injection. This allowed the government to draw up step-by-step plans for an almost complete reopening of its economy by June 21. Hospitalizations and deaths among the elderly, the first to be vaccinated, began to fall significantly more rapidly than among the unvaccinated population.

The Canadian government recommended on Monday that the Oxford-AstraZeneca injection be given to adults, regardless of age, contrary to the recommendation of a national vaccine advisory committee, which on the previous Monday cited insufficient data on the effectiveness of the injection in older people. Canadian government officials said they considered shooting safe and effective for adults of all ages.

A test for the vaccine is expected shortly after the completion of tests on final-stage humans in the USA. AstraZeneca said it expects results from these tests – with about 30,000 volunteers in the US, Chile and Peru – by the end of this month, which means a United States verdict on the vaccine could take place as early as April.

Governments across Europe now face the challenge of overcoming public skepticism about the AstraZeneca vaccine. This has become more ingrained in recent weeks, as many younger health workers have publicly refused the company’s vaccine due to concerns about efficacy and reports of side effects.

Alain Fischer, an immunologist who oversees France’s vaccination campaign, publicly defended the vaccine’s effectiveness and safety last week in an effort to turn the tide of public opinion.

“I think this is deeply unfair,” said Fischer. “This vaccine is relatively poorly publicized in France”.

The European launch of AstraZeneca stumbled when it left the gates. On January 29, the European Medicines Agency, the EU’s drug regulator, endorsed the use of the vaccine in people aged 18 and over, while warning that the vaccine had not been sufficiently tested in people over 55.

Earlier that day, Mr. Macron met with a group of reporters inside the Elysee Palace who questioned whether he was wrong in supporting the EU’s strategy of collectively purchasing vaccine supplies instead of acting alone as in the UK

Mr. Macron, a longtime EU champion, fired back: “The real problem with AstraZeneca is that it didn’t work out the way we expected. Because we had very little information. “So far, he said,” everything seems to indicate that it is almost ineffective for people over 65, some say 60 or more. “

Amid the confusion, national health officials across the continent began to issue their own guidelines. Spain has cut off access for anyone over 55. Italy prevented people aged 55 and over from receiving the AstraZeneca injection, saying it needed more data for that age group, before yielding to public pressure and putting the restriction at age 65 or older.

Germany’s permanent vaccination committee, a panel of experts issuing vaccination guidelines, was against EMA guidance, recommending the injection only for people under 65. The committee said it based the decision on the lack of trial data on the vaccine’s effectiveness in the elderly, not because of any doubt about its overall quality.

This week, the German committee said it would reconsider its original recommendation and possibly open the vaccine for general use. The committee’s chief, Thomas Mertens, said the elderly can expect to receive the injection soon. The initial guidance was not intended to criticize the vaccine itself, he said, adding: “The whole thing somehow didn’t go so well.”

—Jenny Strasburg in London and Giovanni Legorano in Rome contributed to this article.

Write to Stacy Meichtry at [email protected] and Bojan Pancevski at [email protected]