Australia became the most recent country on Thursday by restricting the use of AstraZeneca vaccine for coronavirus, recommending that it not be administered to people under 50 years of age.
The announcement came after drug regulators held a series of urgent meetings on the day. This follows the warning from the European Medicines Agency and that there appears to be a link between the vaccine and the clots.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had received a number of recommendations from an advisory group on Thursday night and that the main one was that the Pfizer vaccine should now be adopted as the preferred one for people under 50 years.
Morrison says the recommendations were made out of plenty of caution because of the strange but severe side effect, which has been mostly associated with younger people.
“We have been taking the necessary precautions based on the best possible medical advice,” he said.
The Australian Immunization Technical Advisory Group further recommended that people under the age of 50 who have already received their first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine should proceed with the second, as medical recommendations indicate that rare clots occur only after the first dose.
The group said that only when the benefit is clearly greater than the risk should the initial dose of AstraZeneca be administered to a person under 50 years of age.
Health workers under the age of 50 who were to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine will now have priority over the Pfizer vaccine, which will almost certainly delay the process.