Age range for AstraZeneca ‘should drop to over 30s’
A LEADING immunologist has called on the Government to follow the example of Britain and vaccinate people over the age of 30 with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson jabs.
NUI Maynooth Professor of Immunology Paul Moynagh was speaking as a new Ireland ThinksIrish Mail on Sunday poll reveals that reports linking AstraZeneca to a very small proportion of blood-clot cases has had no impact on the public’s willingness to be vaccinated.
According to the poll – carried out on Wednesday and Thursday of this week – 87% of those surveyed (a drop of one point on the previous poll conducted on March 20) said they intend to take the vaccine, compared to 8.1% of those who said they will not (a two-point increase).
Government guidelines have restricted the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the over-60s. And as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is showing similar evidence of rare clotting events, it is possible that National Immunisation Advisory Committee will recommend it only be issued for those over 60.
Given our delivery schedule, this could lead to a considerable surplus of vaccines.
Some 605,000 doses of the singleshot Johnson & Johnson vaccine are due in this quarter, though it has been withdrawn temporarily by the company as the European Medicines Agency examines reports of blood clotting. AstraZeneca is committed to a delivery of 813,000 vaccines in this quarter.
‘We could have one million surplus vaccines’
Prof. Moynagh has said his main concern is that we will miss an opportunity to vaccinate more people in a shorter space of time with very good vaccines in an attempt to be ‘overly cautious’.
He said he supports guidance used in Britain where AstraZeneca has been limited to the over-30s.
Prof. Moynagh told the MoS: ‘There’s a possibility that these rare clotting events are also going to be associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine given the six cases in the US. If you look at our deliveries over the next three months, we have a million and a half vaccines arriving between them.
‘Basically, we could have one million surplus vaccines once the over-60s are completed and the key question for me is: are we going to leave a million vaccines that work really, really well when a considerable amount of virus is circulating? This term “abundance of caution” is being used a lot by the European Medicine Agency but that to me says “we’re aware the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks but we’re ignoring it”.’
The professor welcomes the additional supply from Pfizer of 545,000 vaccines announced this week. But he argues that if we keep the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson supply designated to the over-30s rather than over-60s, the country would be in a position to beat our June target of vaccinating 80% of the population. ‘We could vaccinate more people and one of the main parameters we should be discussing here is time,’ he said.
‘We’re protecting people at risk of serious illness and death with the vaccine but we now know you’re also decreasing risk of transmission, so why not make our target more ambitious?
‘The Government is obsessed with 80% of our adult population vaccinated by the end of June, why not make it 100% and use all of the vaccines at our disposal?’
The MoS contacted the Health Service Executive for comment on Professor Moynagh’s remarks in relation to rollout of the vaccines. However, the HSE redirected our query to the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, which in turn redirected the query to the Department of Health.