Australia said on Friday it had ordered more alternatives for the AstraZeneca vaccine, setting back its vaccination rollout, and Hong Kong delayed deliveries of the shot amid concern about a possible very small risk of rare blood clots, Reuters reported.
The Australian decision effectively puts paid to plans to have its entire population vaccinated by the end of October, highlighting the delicate public health balancing act the issue has created.
Millions of doses of the AstraZeneca shot have been safely administered around the world and millions more have been ordered but some countries have limited its use to older age groups as a precaution while cases of clotting are investigated.
Australia said it had doubled its order of the Pfizer shot after health authorities recommended that those under 50 take it instead of AstraZeneca, which had been the mainstay of its vaccination programme.
“It is not a prohibition on the AstraZeneca vaccine,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Canberra. “For those who are over 50, there is a strong encouragement to be taking this AstraZeneca vaccine.”
The Anglo-Swedish company said it respected the Australian recommendation and was working with regulators around the world “to understand the individual cases, epidemiology and possible mechanisms that could explain these extremely rare events”.
European and British medicine regulators said this week they had found possible links with extremely rare cases of brain blood clots, while emphatically reaffirming the vaccine’s importance in mass vaccination against COVID-19.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) received reports of 169 cases of the rare brain blood clot by early April, after 34 million doses had been administered, Sabine Straus, chair of the EMA’s safety committee, said this week.
Most of the cases reported had occurred in women under 60.
On Friday, the EMA said that if a causal relationship is confirmed or considered likely, regulatory action will be needed to minimise risk. It also said it was looking into Johnson & Johnson’s shot over reports of blood clots.
The AstraZeneca shot is by far the cheapest and most high-volume vaccine launched so far, making it likely to be central to many of the worldwide inoculation programmes that are vital to curbing the global pandemic and averting damaging lockdowns.
Germany, one of several European countries which have recommended alternatives to AstraZeneca for people under 60, said on Friday a surge in infections meant a new lockdown was needed.
“Every day in which we don’t act, we lose lives,” Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute, said.
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