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Austria set to approve AstraZeneca vaccine for over 65s

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Austria set to approve AstraZeneca vaccine for over 65s
Nurse Sally Griffiths (L) administers an injection of AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine to a patient at the vaccination centre set up at St Columba's church in Sheffield, northern England, on February 20, 2021. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)

Despite concerns about its effectiveness, Austria is set to buck the trend of almost all of its neighbours in recommending the AstraZeneca vaccine for people aged over 65.

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The head of Austria’s Vaccination Board Ursula Wiedermann-Schmidt has said she will ask health minister Rudolph Anschober to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine for people aged over 65 this week in an interview with ZIB 1.

The approval comes despite concerns surrounding the effectiveness of the vaccine. 

Several other European countries have not recommended the vaccine be administered to people over 65, including Germany, Italy, France and Sweden. 

Neighbouring Switzerland has declined to approve the vaccine entirely - and is now considering selling the 5.3 million doses it has already purchased

There has also been resistance to the vaccine from those awaiting vaccination in Austria. Two weeks ago, around 500 staff at Vienna’s AKH hospital signed a petition saying they did not want to take the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Kronen Zeitung reported it as a “vaccination riot”.

Effective in preventing infections

Maria Paulke-Korinek, head of the vaccination department in the Ministry of Health told  ZIB2 she would wait for the final decision of the vaccination committee.

The vaccine is already approved for all ages over 18 by the European Medicine Agency, but Austria did not previously recommend it for the older age groups due to a lack of data.

Wiedermann-Schmitt said more data had come from the British health authorities which demonstrated the vaccine was effective in preventing infections in older age groups.

She said providing the vaccine deliveries were met, using AstraZeneca for older groups could speed up Austria’s vaccination strategy. 

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Austria has ordered two million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but there were well-publicised delivery problems in the first quarter of the year to the EU, resulting in only 40 million of the promised 90 million doses being delivered. 

On Tuesday EU insiders told Reuters that the company had informed the EU it also expected to deliver less than half the vaccines it was contracted to supply between April and June.

However, the company also issued a statement saying it would try to increase production to stick to its 180 million vaccine doses commitment. 

Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Photo by JOE KLAMAR / AFP)

However, despite these setbacks, Health Minister  Rudolf Anschober said in a statement that even if AstraZeneca should actually deliver less in the second quarter of the year, anyone who wants to can will be offered a vaccination by the summer.

 

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