Berliners react to AstraZeneca restrictions

Berliners on Wednesday reacted to the news that German health officials were restricting the use of AstraZeneca vaccine in people under 60, amid fresh concern over unusual blood clots reported in a small number of those who received the shots.

Berlin had already suspended the use of the shots in younger people on Tuesday after the country's medical regulator said its tally of the rare blood clots reported by March 29 had increased to 31.

Some elderly people outside Messe vaccination centre said they were glad to have had the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs.

Some 2.7 million doses of AstraZeneca have been administered in Germany so far.

Health Minister Jens Spahn and state officials agreed unanimously to only give the vaccine to people aged 60 or older, unless they belong to a high-risk category for serious illness from COVID-19 and have agreed to take the vaccine despite the small risk of a serious side-effect.

The same option will be available to anyone who gets the shot at their GP, which will start to become possible later this month.

The move follows the recommendations of Germany's independent vaccine expert panel and comes after the country's medical regulator released new data showing a rise in reported cases of an unusual form of blood clot in the head — known as sinus vein thrombosis — in recent recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The news is a further blow to the vaccine, which is critical to Europe's immunization campaign and a linchpin in the global strategy to get shots to poorer countries.

Germany's decision is likely to affect appointments made by tens of thousands of teachers and people with pre-existing conditions who received invitations to get vaccinated in Berlin in recent days.

Appointments for the AstraZeneca shot were available sooner than for those made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna due to higher demand for those vaccines.