Canberra: The Australian government on Thursday decided to limit the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 to citizens aged 60 and over in line with the revised recommendations of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation on the risks of blood clots after the inoculation.
"Today, the Australian Government has accepted updated advice from the vaccination experts on the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) about the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. ATAGI's updated advice is based on new evidence demonstrating a higher risk than originally thought of the rare blood-clotting TTS [thrombosis and thrombocytopenia syndrome] among people aged 50 to 59," Australian Government Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said in a statement.
The vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech has been made the preferred one for those aged 16-59.
According to ATAGI, the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine was recommended for those who had not had any adverse reactions after the first inoculation with the same vaccine.
The vaccine developed by the UK-Swedish pharmaceutical and the University of Oxford has lately been under scrutiny in light of reports about some recipients developing blood clots after vaccination. The European Medicines Agency have recommended its use, arguing that blood clots are very rare events and that the benefits of taking the jab outweigh the risks. (UNI)