The reasons why part of Europe does not trust the AstraZeneca vaccine

BERLIN.- The anticovid vaccine of AstraZeneca / Oxford, less effective than its messenger RNA rivals, it is defended by most governments and health authorities, but continues to arouse suspicion in part of Europe.

In Germany, doctors and public health officials on Thursday demanded that the drug, which is cheaper and easier to store, be applied more.

Tens of thousands of bottles of this product, created by the Anglo-Swedish group AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, remain unused. And many medical appointments to be vaccinated are canceled, warn the German health authorities.

In Saxony (East), a region with one of the highest infection rates in Germany, more than 2,500 available vaccination slots were left empty this week, according to the German Red Cross.

The German Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, defended this drug, “safe and effective” like those of BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna. These two vaccines, based on messenger RNA technology, are more than 90% effective, compared to 60% for AstraZeneca.

In France, where the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, received a dose of this vaccine in public, there is also a lot of mistrust. This vaccine is not “second class”, tries to reassure Alain Fischer, coordinator of the vaccination campaign.

The French Medicine Agency (ANSM) recorded 149 declarations (out of 10,000 vaccinations carried out between 6 and 10 February) of flu-like syndromes, some of high intensity (high fever, muscle pain, headache) after injection of the product.

In Austria, They also look at him with suspicion and hundreds of medical staff across the country have canceled their vaccination appointments after rumors of possible side effects, such as fever, spread.

A group of doctors from Salzburg lobbied the government distribute BioNTech vaccines, not AstraZeneca, arguing that it worked faster and better protected patients.

In Bulgaria, which did not impose an age limit for this vaccine, unlike other European countries, mistrust is growing among the elderly.

And in Italy, the problem arose when the federation of private doctors and dentists of Rome, which represents those who do not work in hospitals, opposed the immunization of its members with the AstraZeneca product, because it did not offer sufficient protection.

“The attitude of doctors who do not want the AstraZeneca vaccine is disdainful”, deplores Massimo Galli, director of the infectious diseases department of Sacco hospital in Milan (north).

“If they had to choose between AstraZeneca now or another vaccine in a few months, they should choose AstraZeneca now”, he asks, for his part, Carsten Watzl, Secretary General of the German Society for Immunology.

In Germany, this skepticism is partly due to mixed messages in January from the health authorities. Before insisting on its use, they questioned its effectiveness in the elderly, to the point that the Vaccines Commission advised against its application to over 65s.

Consequently, of the 740,000 doses delivered to the 16 German regions, only 107,000 were administeredthe Robert Koch Health Surveillance Institute lamented Thursday.

Only one in three Germans under 65 would be willing to receive this drug, according to a survey conducted by the daily Tagesspiegel.

However, the massive use of this vaccine is key to achieving the government’s goal: that all Germans have received at least one dose by early fall.

This Wednesday, only 3.6% of the population had received a first dose, currently reserved for health workers and the elderly

To avoid wasting the valuable product, it will be offered to non-priority people, including the security forces.

AFP

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