The World Health Organisation (WHO) is of the view that some of the advanced countries like Britain, Australia and Greece, who have decided not to use some Covid-19 vaccines for the younger age groups, should divert their surplus AstraZeneca stocks to poor countries.
As there is an acute shortage of vaccines in some countries, WHO is of the opinion that surplus Astrazeneca vaccines should be given to countries who do not have the required doses to cover frontline workers such as healthcare staff and police personnel at high risk from exposure to coronavirus.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said high income countries had on average vaccinated one in four people while in low income countries it was one in more than 500.
“There remains a shocking imbalance in the distribution of vaccines,” he said at a press briefing on Friday.
According to a report, the WHO and GAVI vaccine alliance`s COVAX mechanism aims to ensure vaccines reach poorer nations. Asked whether COVAX was negotiating for doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that had been shunned, GAVI alliance head Seth Berkley said the Anglo-Swedish company`s supply chain had “picked up”. The AstraZeneca shot is by far the cheapest and most widely used vaccine launched so far to curb the pandemic.
Under-30s in the UK are to be offered an alternative Covid vaccine to the AstraZeneca jab as blood clots have been seen in rare cases amongst those who got the jabs and these are being investigated, according to a BBC report.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is also being produced in India and is the mainstay of the country`s inoculation campaign which has successfully covered more than 93 million people. However, India`s current vaccination phase is confined to those who are above 45 years of age. The inoculation of the younger age groups, with the exception of those who are frontline workers, has still not been taken up as there are not enough vaccines to go around.
It is to be noted that several countries have put on hold the trials Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
The recommendation to not give AstraZeneca shots to the younger age group comes after a review by the UK drugs regulator found that by the end of March, 79 people had suffered rare blood clots after vaccination. The regulator said this was not proof the jab had caused the clots but the link was getting firmer, the BBC report said.
The 79 cases and 19 deaths occurred after 20 million doses were administered – giving a risk of about four in one million of developing a blood clot, and one in a million of dying.
The people who died were aged between 18 and 79, with three of them aged under 30.
(With IANS inputs)