Facing the slow rollout of vaccination in Spain, regional health authorities and doctors on Wednesday called on the central government to expand the categories of people who can receive AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine.
While other European countries such as Germany, France and Italy have expanded the use of the injection manufactured by the British-Swedish company to include more elderly patients, Spain continues to administer it to those under 55 years of age.
But critics say that Spain’s reluctance to use the AstraZeneca vaccine, combined with delays in shipping the three vaccines licensed for use in the European Union, threatens to expose vulnerable people. So far, the EU has approved vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, which require two injections per person, and on Thursday its regulator, the European Medicines Agency, will consider approving Johnson & Johnson’s, which is a single dose.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are currently intended for those over 80 in Spain, while essential workers 55 and under, such as teachers and police, are receiving AstraZeneca injections.
“This situation has greatly complicated the vaccination strategy,” Catalan regional health authorities said on Wednesday. “For example, there are teachers or policemen over 55 who still do not have a turn to get vaccinated, while their colleagues do. For this reason, in Catalonia we wanted the cap to be 65 ”.
When the first coronavirus vaccines arrived in January, the Spanish government promised to vaccinate 70% of its adult population by the summer. So far, only 1.4 million of the 47 million residents in Spain have been vaccinated.
An independent society of physicians also recommended a bolder approach to the government to fight the worst global health crisis in a century.
“The rate of vaccination in Spain and other countries is very slow, mainly due to the limitation in the arrival of vaccines, but possibly also due to self-imposed obstacles, as in this case, driven by an excess of prudence,” he stated in a statement. the General Council of Official Medical Associations (CGCOM).
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