Updated 3 February 2021 at 18:41 IST
Oxford trial chief speaks on COVID vaccine's response in elderly, rejects Macron's remarks
“I don’t understand what that statement means,” Oxford's trial chief said when asked about French President's “quasi-ineffective” remark about AstraZeneca.
Oxford’s coronavirus vaccine trial chief Andrew Pollard on Wednesday said that the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca produces “good immune responses” in older people, confirming the medical product’s efficacy on a live-streamed show on BBC radio. When asked by the reporter whether the AstraZeneca vaccine is “quasi-ineffective” in elderly people aged over 65, as stated by the French President Emmanuel Macron, Pollard lashed out, saying, “I don’t understand what that statement means,” counter questioning, “why do people have less certainty about the level of protection.” The University of Oxford vaccinologist, further stated that the doubts brimmed as the company had rather fewer data from the clinical trials in older adults.
“But we have good immune responses in older adults very similar to younger adults, the protection that we do see is in exactly the same direction, and of a similar magnitude,” Oxford’s vaccine trial chief said LIVE on-air. Furthermore, citing the formally published crucial data from the trials, Pollard said that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had the potential to cut the spread of the coronavirus for a better future. He stressed the AstraZeneca vaccine is 76 percent effective just three months into getting a 1 shot dosage, referring to the data that suggested over 17,000 people in the UK, South Africa, and Brazil had achieved immuno-response post one jab.
Macron: Vaccine 'doesn't work on elderly'
“The real problem with AstraZeneca is that it doesn’t work the way we were expecting it to among the older population," Macron said at a COVID-19 weekly presser, on January 29. "We’re waiting for the EMA, the European Medicines Agency results, but today everything points to thinking it is ‘quasi-ineffective’ on people older than 65, some say those 60 years or older,” he elaborated, citing safety issue. Despite his remarks, the EMA gave an emergency approval to the vaccine, however adding, that there was insufficient data on clinical reactions on 55 years old and above, and hence caution must be exercised.
The medicinal agency, although, announced that there was reliable information on safety as has been seen with other vaccines when administered to the elderly. However, drawing a comparison of Renault car model with Tesla's electric car, French President Macron told state reporters that the AstraZeneca vaccine was complicated to produce and store, and it was “both a wonderful and one of the complicated aspect of a pandemic”. Adding to the remarks, he said, that he was meaning that in the crisis, “Twingo is taking longer to produce than the Tesla that we had never produced before.”
Published By : Zaini Majeed
Published On: 3 February 2021 at 18:41 IST