Australia on Thursday joined a rising variety of international locations halting the usage of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for youthful individuals over fears it could actually trigger critical blood clots.
In an extra setback for Australia’s already halting coronavirus vaccine rollout, officers mentioned the AstraZeneca shot ought to not be given to individuals beneath the age of fifty, except they’d already acquired a primary dose with none ailing results.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison held a night press convention to announce the choice shortly after the federal government’s medical advisory board determined to comply with European and different international locations in limiting the usage of AstraZeneca.
“It has not been our practice to jump at shadows, it has not been our practice to take unnecessary precautions,” he mentioned in explaining the step.
”We’ve been taking the mandatory precautions based mostly on the absolute best medical recommendation.”
Australia has been one of many world’s most profitable international locations in containing the unfold of Covid-19, with fewer than 30,000 instances and 1,000 deaths for a inhabitants of 25 million and nearly no ongoing neighborhood transmission.
But it has fallen far behind the federal government’s personal schedule for vaccinating individuals towards the illness, with simply 1,000,000 doses administered by Thursday when it had pledged to offer 4 million doses by final week.
Australia had counted on utilizing AstraZeneca to inoculate most of its inhabitants, first utilizing doses imported from Europe after which regionally manufactured vaccines.
But vaccine shortages in Europe led to delays in AstraZeneca shipments, whereas deliberate deliveries of different vaccines like Pfizer/BioNTech and Novavax haven’t but ramped up.
Several European international locations have already suspended the usage of AstraZeneca’s vaccine for youthful populations after it was earlier banned outright in a number of locations over blood clot scares.
Australian officers justified the cutoff age of fifty for giving the vaccine by saying youthful individuals have been much less liable to struggling extreme issues from Covid-19.
But they careworn that older Australians ought to proceed to belief the AstraZeneca photographs.
“I want to reiterate that we are strongly encouraging those 50 and over to take up the AstraZeneca vaccine — it is a highly effective vaccine at preventing severe Covid,” mentioned Brendan Murphy, head of the federal government’s well being division.
He added that the hazard from blood clots related to the vaccine was “extraordinarily low”.
There has to date been just one case of blood clotting in a affected person who acquired the AstraZeneca vaccine in Australia.
Morrison and Murphy mentioned they have been assured there could be sufficient doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Novavax vaccines to finish the inoculation of Australian adults.
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