Senior European Medicines Agency official says AstraZeneca vaccine should be suspended for all age groups

In an interview published in the Italian newspaper The imprint, Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccine strategy at the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said the application of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine should be abandoned in Europe for all age groups where alternatives are available.

The EMA officially considers Astrazeneca injection safe for all age groups, however, several member states of the European Union have stopped giving it to people under a certain age, who are usually between 50 and 65 years old, limiting its use to the elderly population, due to the rare cases of thrombosis, mainly in young people.

Thrombosis is a disorder that involves the formation of clots in the circulatory system. It can be arterial or venous thrombi. Many diseases exhibit this phenomenon which can affect any internal organ or the general circulation.

“In a context of a pandemic, our position was and is that the benefit / risk ratio remains favorable for all age groups,” said the head of the Covid-19 working group. However, as the number of Covid-19 cases decreases, the official said that it would be preferable to use messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, such as Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.

Yesterday, Italy announced that AstraZeneca vaccines will only be applied over the age of 60, due to concerns about the health risks for very young people.

When asked if it would not be better to ban AstraZeneca even for those over 60, Cavaleri replied: “Yes, and it is an option that many countries, like France and Germany , are considering in light of the increased availability of mRNA vaccines. “.

“However, incidents were very rare and after the first dose. It is true that there is less data on the second dose, but in the UK (the vaccination program) is going well, “he added.

And he added: “In young people, the risk of disease decreases, and the message to them could be that they prefer to use mRNA vaccines, but the choice is left to individual states. “

During the interview, The official also said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should preferably be used for people over 60.

He explained, however, that the single-dose vaccine has “fewer problems than AstraZeneca”, but also noted that it has been used less. “With one dose, it’s useful for some hard-to-reach categories, but it’s still an adenovirus (vaccine) and best reserved for those over 60,” he said.

Both vaccines, called viral vector vaccines, are licensed for people 18 years of age and older, but have been affected by reports of rare blood clots.

Viral vector vaccines, such as those from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, use a genetically modified version of an adenovirus that causes the common cold as a “vector” to transmit genetic instructions into human cells. While the genetic technology of messenger RNA causes the body to reproduce advanced proteins, similar to those of the coronavirus. When then exposed to the real virus, the body recognizes the spike proteins and is able to fight them off.

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