Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has lashed out at media reports questioning whether its coronavirus vaccine is maximally effective when used on the elderly, with the firm still under fire over expected EU delivery delays.
The claims were "completely incorrect," it said, highlighting approval from the UK medicine regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and support from its vaccine body the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
One of the reports that raised questions came in German business daily newspaper Handelsblatt.
It cited sources within the German federal government stating that the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine among people older than 65 stands at 8.0 per cent.
The German tabloid Bild made a similar allegation in its report.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn declined to comment on the claims, telling broadcaster ZDF that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and his country's own Robert Koch Institute were currently scrutinising the data.
The EMA is expected to grant approval of the shot for use in the European Union on Friday.
The German Health Ministry said it looked as though the Handelsblatt report may have gotten some figures mixed up.
It said that, as part of AstraZeneca's efficacy trial, 8.0 per cent of participants had been aged between 56 and 69 while only between 3.0 and 4.0 per cent had been aged 70 and older.
An efficacy rate of 8.0 per cent for those aged 65 and up could not be derived from those figures, it added.
However, there were fewer older people involved in the first studies submitted by AstraZeneca than in studies by other vaccine manufacturers, the ministry explained.
This had also been known since the northern autumn.
In light of the scant data on elderly participants, EMA's scientists will also "consider what could reasonably be expected in populations that maybe have not been studied," agency director Emer Cooke told the European Parliament.
Its scientific committee could also theoretically decide to recommend conditional market authorisation only for certain age groups, Cooke said.
The fight about the vaccine's usefulness added to AstraZeneca's problems, after it was already in hot water following its announcement that shipments of vaccines to EU countries would be much slower than expected.
"Europe invested billions to help develop the world's first COVID vaccines," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum.
"Now the companies must deliver and honour their obligations."
According to the EU executive branch, the bloc had expected 80 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed at the University of Oxford, by the end of March, but is now only anticipating 31 million.
Fellow vaccine producer Pfizer-BioNTech - a joint US-German venture - also announced slower than expected deliveries to the EU last week but pledged to fill 100 per cent of agreed orders by the end of this week.
Australian Associated Press
