Filenews 9 April 2021
The World Health Organisation reiterated today that, in the absence of 'appropriate data', it cannot recommend changing the Covid-19 vaccine from the first to the second dose, as France plans to do for citizens under 55 who have been vaccinated with the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"There is not the right data to say whether this is something that can be done" and therefore the agency's experts concluded "that switching vaccines is not something they can recommend at this stage," Margaret Harris, a WHO spokeswoman, said during the regular briefing of journalists in Geneva.
The spokeswoman recalled that this is the position adopted by the WHO Expert Advisory Group (SAGE) on vaccination in February, before reports of a possible link between this vaccine and very rare cases of thrombosis.
Harris also pointed out that the SAGE team had called at the time for scientific studies to be carried out on the combination of different vaccines.
In France, citizens under the age of 55 who have been vaccinated with a first dose of AstraZeneca will receive the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine as a second dose, the country's High Health Authority (HAS) announced today.
This concerns 533,000 people in France, according to HAS. This authority had suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for under-55s on 19 March due to rare cases of thrombosis detected in Europe.
"For these individuals, we recommend that a vaccine be given with messenger RNA" for the second dose with a distance of 12 weeks between the two, HAS president Dominique Le Gilidek said during a conference call.
Source: news.in.gr
