Covid-19 latest updates Rich countries with low vaccination rates take a second look at Oxford-AstraZeneca shot

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Oxford-AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine had been spurned by some rich countries in preference for messenger RNA shots like those made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. But as much of the world scrambles to inoculate itself amid outbreaks of the highly transmissible delta variant, the Anglo-Swede vaccine is getting a second look.
Amid a prolonged outbreak in Sydney, Australia’s vaccine authority now advises all adults in the country’s largest metropolitan area to “strongly consider getting vaccinated with any available vaccine including covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca.â€
The updated guidance issued last weekend was sparked by the increasing risk of covid infection in the area, the Australian Technical Group on Immunization said, as well as shortages of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The group also said that people in hotspots who had already received their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine could receive their second dose four to eight weeks later, instead of waiting the previously-advised 12 weeks.
Here are some significant developments:
Australia in June had recommended the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine over the AstraZeneca shot for people between 16 to 60 years old, due to concerns over rare blood clots. The Oxford-AstraZeneca shot is a more traditional adenovirus vaccine.
An AstraZeneca-funded study of its vaccine published this week in the Lancet medical journal found that the risk of clots was significantly lower after the second dose â€" equivalent to the rate in unvaccinated people â€" than after the first.
The AstraZeneca shot is also getting renewed attention in Japan, which is considering using it to vaccinate people in their 40s and 50s, according to a report in the Nikkei, citing unnamed sources. Japan had previously planned to primarily use the vaccine for those 60 and older, if supplies of the mRNA vaccines preferred by its national inoculation program run low. (It had held off from mass use of the shot due to worries about blood clots.) Tokyo has previously donated millions of doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to allies in East and Southeast Asia.
Japan is battling a weeks-long surge in coronavirus cases, reporting more than 5,000 cases per day on average, according to data from its health ministry. Most of the new infections are occurring in people in their 20s and 30s.
New Zealand’s drug regulatory authority on Thursday granted “provisional approval†to use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on those above 18. But the approval came with a caveat: The government has yet to consider whether to use the vaccine on its own population.
Instead, the provisional approval is “an important step towards enabling the donation of AstraZeneca from New Zealand to Pacific countries, where we have made commitments,†said Ayesha Verrall, the country’s acting minister for covid-19.
She said in a statement that Pfizer-BioNTech is still the preferred vaccine in New Zealand, and that the government is expecting to have enough supplies to fully inoculate its entire population with the shots by the end of the year. “No one will miss out,†Verrall said.
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