Dusseldorf Feb 17, (dpa/GNA) – Reports of side effects – and concerns about efficacy – have led some people in Germany to snub AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, prompting officials to leap to the drug’s defence.
The vaccine in question is “safe and effective,” just like the other two approved for use in Germany, Health Minister Jens Spahn said in Berlin. “Whoever waits [to get vaccinated] is risking getting seriously ill while also risking spreading the virus further,” he added, urging nurses and doctors to take the vaccine when offered.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for people below age 65, unlike the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which have been given the green light for the very elderly as well.
Of the almost 740,000 AstraZeneca doses already delivered to Germany, just under 90,000 have been administered, according to the minister.
Usage data varies between the country’s 16 states.
In Lower Saxony, only 8,806 of the 72,000 AstraZeneca doses sent to the north-western region have so far been used, the state health ministry in Hanover reported.
An unknown number of people in the western state of North Rhine Westphalia had cancelled or not shown up for their vaccination appointments, the local Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
The local Siegener Zeitung newspaper reported cancellations at a vaccination centre in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein, where patients had complained about symptoms such as tiredness, fever and joint pain.
Some 30 per cent of emergency service staff and medics invited to get the British-Swedish vaccine developer’s jab had not accepted the offer in the city of Muenster, according to the Westfaelische Nachrichten, another local daily.
A spokesperson for the state ministry insisted that the vaccine was not “second class.”
That was reiterated in the southern state of Bavaria, where the regional health minister insisted that “AstraZeneca is a good and safe vaccine.”
In an interview with local broadcaster Bayern-2-Radiowelt, Klaus Holetschek opposed calls to give people the choice between vaccines, arguing that Germany does not have enough doses to be picky.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is recommended by the World Health Organization. It is slightly less effective at preventing Covid-19 than vaccines developed by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna.
The debate in Germany prompted an angry reaction from one doctors’ association.
“Those who talk negatively about the vaccine from AstraZeneca for reasons of populism or grandstanding by casting doubt on its efficacy … will be partly to blame if the lockdown lasts longer and older people continue to die of Covid-19,” said Dirk Heinrich, head of the Virchowbund association.
GNA