02/05/2021 16:14
Clarín.com
World
Updated 02/05/2021 4:18 PM
The Spanish Ministry of Health announced on Friday that it will limit the use of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine to people under the age of 55, after other European countries decided to apply comparable restrictions.
France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and other countries have set age limits for this vaccine, developed by the Anglo-Swedish laboratory AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, due to the lack of risk assessment in older people.
Spain joined this payroll this Friday: "The Public Health Commission, following the scientific evidence, approved setting the maximum age of 55 years of people who will receive the doses of the vaccine against covid-19 from AstraZeneca and the University Oxford ", said the statement from the Ministry of Health of that country.
Thus, that Iberian country also ruled in the opposite direction to that stipulated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which approved its use in the European Union for all those over 18 years of age.
The German vaccine authority was the first, last week, to recommend that the AstraZeneca vaccine not be administered to people over 65 years of age, considering that
there is insufficient information to determine its effectiveness after that age.
And Switzerland asked for "additional data" before giving the green light to its use.
The vaccine from AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company that angered European leaders over delayed delivery of doses, was the third to be authorized by the EU, after Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna.
Spain administered about 1.9 million doses, and plans to have 70% of its 47 million inhabitants immunized by the summer, a goal that the government guarantees despite delays in receiving doses from laboratories.
Health Minister Carolina Darias said this week that the government was open to the possibility of Spain administering the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, as long as it receives the green light from the EMA.
Source: AFP