The scientific committee overseeing the UK Covid-19 vaccination campaign, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI), recommended, Friday, May 7, to limit the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to those over 40 years old when possible, after the report of 242 cases of blood clots, including 49 deaths.
Stressing that the risk is “ extremely rare “, the JCVI had already advised in April to administer this vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, to those over 30 years old when a vaccine from another manufacturer is available.
“We recommend that adults aged 18 to 39 without comorbidity be offered an alternative to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, if it is available and does not lead to a delay in vaccination”, said Prof. Wei Shen Lim of JCVI. “Vaccines against Covid-19 have already saved thousands of lives and the benefit for the majority of the population is clear”, he added.
In a statement, the British government said it would follow the recommendation, stressing that it was maintaining its goal of giving a first dose of the vaccine to all adults by the end of July.
A “positive” risk / benefit balance
Britain’s medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said it had seen 49 deaths at the end of April of people who had received the Covid-19 vaccine from Oxford-AstraZeneca, on a total of 242 cases of blood clots (thrombosis) among the more than 28 million doses administered. Most cases occurred after administration of the first dose, in 141 women and 100 men (one case not specified) aged 18 to 93 years.
According to MHRA director June Raine, speaking at a press conference, the benefits of the vaccine still outweigh the risks for ” the large majority “ of the population, especially among older people, more likely to develop severe forms of Covid-19.
Several European countries have suspended the use of the vaccine from the Anglo-Swedish laboratory AstraZeneca under a certain age due to reports of blood clots among people vaccinated with this product. In April, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) estimated that blood clots should be listed as a “very rare” side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine, considering that the benefit / risk balance remained. “Positive”.
In addition to AstraZeneca, vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are currently authorized in the United Kingdom, whose vaccination campaign is one of the most advanced in the world. Almost 35 million people have received a first dose, and more than 16 million a second dose since the beginning of December. This success, as well as several months of confinement, led to a drop in the number of contaminations and deaths linked to the coronavirus in the country, the most bereaved in Europe with more than 127,000 deaths, which began to lift the restrictions put in place. place on its territory.
