Boris Johnson defends AstraZeneca vaccine after Germany says it will not recommend jab for over-65s

Boris Johnson and Public Health England (PHE) have defended the UK’s decision to use AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine for people aged 65 and over after German advisers ruled that the jab should only be given to younger people.

A draft recommendation from Germany’s vaccination advisory committee on Thursday said that the jab could be used for people aged 18 to 64 for now, but added there was “insufficient data” on its efficacy for those aged 65 and over.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Scotland, Mr Johnson said he was not concerned about the decision and argued that the vaccine provided “a good immune response across all age groups”.

“I think the MHRA, our own authorities, have made it very clear that they think the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is very good and efficacious, gives a high degree of protection after just one dose and even more after two doses,” the prime minister said.

“And the evidence they've supplied is they think it's effective across all age groups and provides a good immune response across all age groups.”

Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisations at PHE, noted that there had been “too few cases” of Covid-19 in older people in the vaccine’s Phase 3 clinical trial to determine efficacy in this age group.

However, she said other data on immune response had been “very reassuring”.

Results from the Phase 2 trial, published in The Lancet in November, showed the AstraZeneca vaccine produced a strong immune response in adults in their 60s and 70s.

“Both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines are safe and provide high levels of protection against Covid-19, particularly against severe disease,” Dr Ramsay said.

“There were too few cases in older people in the AstraZeneca trials to observe precise levels of protection in this group, but data on immune responses were very reassuring.”

She added: “The risk of severe disease and death increase exponentially with age - the priority is to vaccinate as many vulnerable people as possible with either vaccine, to protect more people and save more lives.”

The Phase 3 Lancet study published in December said older age groups had been recruited later into the study so “efficacy data in these cohorts are currently limited by the small number of cases, but additional data will be available in future analyses”.

In that particular analysis, only 12 per cent of people given two doses of the vaccine in the UK arm of the trial (285 out of 2,377) were aged 56 to 69, while 9 per cent (213) were over 70.

Some 12 per cent of people in the control group, who were given a dummy vaccine, were also aged 56 to 69 while 9 per cent were over 70.

Older people made up similar proportions in the Brazilian section of the trial, which was made up of 4,088 people.

On Thursday, Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn stressed that the committee’s recommendation was not final and said that a decision would only be made after the vaccine was cleared for use.

He also noted that the problem was not about “bad data” but limited data in the studies on the jab’s effectiveness in older groups.

“It was to be expected that this would have an influence on the decision of the regulatory authorities and then the permanent vaccine commission,” Mr Spahn said.

“We just don't know yet how concretely - so let's wait for the decision tomorrow on clearance and then the final recommendation from the permanent vaccine commission.”

The European Medicines Agency is to decide on Friday whether to approve the vaccine for use across the EU.

Additional reporting by PA