Australia announced on Tuesday the approval of the vaccine against covid-19 from the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford without a priori restrictions for those over 65.

Sydney (Australia), Feb 16 – Australia announced on Tuesday the approval of the vaccine against covid-19 from the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford without a priori restrictions for those over 65.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said in a statement that it has approved the use of the vaccine for people over 18 years of age for the next two years, and becomes the second to obtain the green light in the oceanic country after Pfizer.
This body highlights that, although those over 65 years have shown “a strong immune response” in clinical trials, there were not enough participants to draw definitive conclusions about its efficacy in this age group.

“The decision to immunize an older patient should be decided on a case-by-case basis, considering age, disease and environment, considering the benefits of the vaccine and potential risks,” the statement said.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the Anglo-Swedish vaccine for all age groups, some countries have provisionally banned those over 65 years of age due to the uncertainty about its side effects.

Australia has so far secured the purchase of 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, of which 50 million will be manufactured on Australian soil once the pharmaceutical quality requirements are met.

It is expected that these vaccines will begin to be inoculated in the population in March, after this approval by the Australian authorities, which have also signed agreements to obtain doses from Novavax and the COVAX consortium.

This announcement came after the arrival of the first 142,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine in Australia, which will begin to be administered to the first patients on Monday, February 22.

Australia, with swift measures such as border closures and partial confinements, is one of the countries that has best managed the pandemic, with 28,905 cases so far, including 909 deaths from coronavirus.

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