Heed the advice on vaccines, says HSE’s Dr Breslin
THE director of public health with the HSE North West has urged people to continue to heed best medical advice as vaccines and their rollout process is naturally subject to change.
Dr Anthony Breslin was commenting after the recommendation for the AstraZeneca vaccine not to be used for those under the age of 60 was announced on Monday evening. Speaking on North West Today on Ocean FM, Dr Breslin started by reassuring people due to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine that they “will be rescheduled down the line.”
The change in the rollout of the vaccine has been prompted by reports of blood clots experienced by some people who received their dose. Dr Breslin said that issues such as this with vaccines are not unexpected and said all decisions being made are done so from a place of ultra caution to ensure the chance of such complications remain extremely low.
“Anybody who knows anything about vaccines knows issues will crop up,” he said.
“You can’t just turn a switch and get them out the door quickly. “With new medicine you find out as much as you can in trials and once it’s out there you have to continue monitoring its efficiency. “We are doing a lot of vaccinations in a short space of time and we are finding out things and one of them is that in five people out of every one million doses given, there has been a blood clot in the head which some people have unfortunately died from.” “It is terribly rare but everybody is being up front about it and saying this is there. The powers that be are being ultra cautious.”
Dr Breslin went on to confirm that the interval between doses has been extended to 16 weeks, but said that it could be restored the original 12 weeks if the information that becomes available suggests that it is safe to do so.
“Information will be reviewed as it comes in and see if we can go back to 12 weeks. It is just about being phenomonally cautious,” he reiterated. In response to a query about mixing vaccines across two doses for better results, Dr Breslin said this is being researched at present in a fast-tracked environment but at this moment in time there is no research which definitely concludes that this is a safe option.
“We don’t know that yet. It is being looked at. There are lots of vaccine choices, what is happening is we are doing research in two to three months which normally takes two to three years.
“Things have been fast-tracked to get the best information and best protection out there.”
While such a cautious approach has caused frustration, it has been deemed the correct thing to do as carefully conducted research was also necessary before the vaccine could declared safe for over-60s. “People over 60 are more likely to get Covid-19 and suffer serious consequences. The issues have happened among people in younger age groups. Initially we couldn’t give it to over-60s because we don’t have the study information, but once that became available we could start doing that. Things move on as you get the information.”
He concluded that there is a common desire to get out of the pandemic and resume normal life as best as we can, but that won’t be possible if the vaccination rollout isn’t changed to address any possible safety issues.
“We are in a very unusual situation. Who could have imagined all of this a couple of years ago? We are in a unique situation we want to get out of it but we want to get out of it safely.”