It is pending to solve what will happen to the 2,154,675 that have already received the first one. Most are under the age of 60 who will either be inoculated with another formula or are left with only 70% protection, which according to studies offers only one dose
AstraZeneca’s vaccine will continue to be an important aid in achieving immunization goals against the epidemic, but doubts about its safety have caused a new shift in the Spanish vaccination strategy, just 24 hours after Pedro Sánchez committed to a schedule. which allowed herd immunity at the end of August.
The Interterritorial Council of the National Health System, in which the central Government and the autonomous communities participate, gave the green light to the proposal agreed in the Vaccine Conference after learning the details of the European Medicines Agency. This consists of leaving, now, AstraZeneca to the population over 60. At the time, it was decided to paralyze sine die the immunization of minors of this age, a resolution that affects especially the essential groups.
“The AstraZeneca vaccine is going to be implemented, the agreement is, for those over 60 years old”, clarified Carolina Darias, Minister of Health, in the sense that the upper limit of 65 years would be only a consequence of the strategy they already had implemented the autonomies for the next few days. However, and under the new agreement, vaccination could also be opened to people over 65.
This means that it is pending to solve what will happen to the 2,154,675 that have already received the first one. Most are under the age of 60 who will either be inoculated with another formula or are left with only 70% protection, which according to studies offers only one dose.
The affected groups under 60 years of age are those of 3, which includes other social health personnel other than group 2, and group 6, which are the active groups with an essential function for society: Security Forces and Bodies, Emergencies and Forces Armed; teachers and staff of early childhood education and special educational needs, and primary and secondary education. In addition, the AstraZeneca vaccine sheet is adapted and includes the linkage of thrombi with the use of the vaccine.
These decisions sow doubt among the autonomies, because, according to consulted sources, they do not know how they are going to explain it to the population. The Community of Madrid has shown its disagreement with the proposal of the Ministry of Health to vaccinate now only between 60 and 65 years, because, it argues, it is not based on the Conclusions of the Committee for the Evaluation of Risks in European Pharmacovigilance (PRAC), the A body dependent on the European Medicines Agency (EMA) that has studied in recent weeks the possible link between cases of thrombosis and the vaccine.
In general, despite reluctance also shown by the rest of the autonomies, the rest have voted yes to the Health proposal, with the exceptions of, in addition to Madrid, the Basque Country and Ceuta, which have abstained . The feeling of the people present at the meeting, as EL MUNDO has learned, is that the PRAC instructions had not been read.
María Jesús Lamas, director of the Spanish Medicines Agency (Aemps), pointed out that the European authorities have concluded “that the benefit-risk balance of the vaccine remains positive. This is the mission of the PRAC ”, he recalled. “However, they have concluded that these rare cases have a link with the administration of the vaccine,” Lamas added. The conclusion of the PRAC is supported, according to Lamas, both by the statistical association and by the discovery of the “mechanism” that would explain the adverse effect. Adverse effects, Lamas insisted, “are rare.” In the European Union and the United Kingdom, 169 cases of venous cerebral thrombosis and 53 of thrombosis in the abdomen have been detected ,after the vaccine was administered to 34 million people. Most of the cases have occurred in women under 60 years of age, but the PRAC has not reached any conclusion about “which population should or should not receive the vaccine,” explained the director of Aemps.
On the other hand, the Interterritorial Council also debated the proposal of the Ministry of Health to expand the exceptions to the controversial Law of mandatory nature of masks that includes the situations in which it will be possible not to wear them, with a view to the usual leisure activities in spring and summer. The minister explained that “we have established an annex in this agreement,” which includes “what activities are considered incompatible with the use of the mask.” “I give you an example, bathing in the sea, river, reservoir, lake or pool would be incompatible,” he reflected. On the contrary, the walk on the beach would require the use of a mask. It is an agreement that interprets, but does not modify article 6.2. Until now, the exception that allowed not wearing a mask to people doingSport individually, provided that a minimum distance of 1.5 meters can be maintained, is now extended to any “physical effort of a non-sporting nature”.