Australian scientists suggest delaying AstraZeneca vaccine as infections fall

Sydney

SOME Australian scientists have proposed delaying mass inoculation using AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine with a view to considering a different shot instead.

Questions surrounding the vaccine in Australia, which recorded just one new local case of the coronavirus on Wednesday in New South Wales, have cast a cloud over its immunisation plans, with 53 million doses of the AstraZeneca jab already on order.

Experts cited data showing the AstraZeneca jab had 62 per cent efficacy compared with over 90 per cent for a vaccine developed by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech.

"The question is really whether it (AstraZeneca) is able to provide herd immunity. We are playing a long game here. We don't know how long that will take," said Professor Stephen Turner, president of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology (ASI).

He added that the government must pivot towards getting more of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

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Earlier, he told the Sydney Morning Herald that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not one "I would be deploying widely because of that lower efficacy".

In a statement, the ASI said Prof Turner was speaking as an expert in immunology and that the body did not advocate a pause to the rollout as widely reported by local media.

Australia has agreed to buy 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, though neither AstraZeneca nor Pfizer have approval from the country's drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment. Its vaccine is approved in Britain, India and Argentina and is under review by several other countries including South Korea and Brazil.

Australia's chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, called the AstraZeneca vaccine, "effective", "safe" and "high quality. The great advantage of the AstraZeneca vaccine is it's being made here in Australia. It will be available as soon as the TGA gives its tick, which we expect it will in February".

Given the low case numbers and community transmission rates, some experts say Australia could afford to wait for a more effective vaccine.

"The government needs to be flexible in its rollout decisions once we have a better understanding of the efficacy of the other vaccines," said Adrian Esterman, chair of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of South Australia.

In Queensland, hundreds of hotel quarantine guests were forced to restart their isolation after a handful of cases in the facility were linked to the highly contagious UK virus strain. REUTERS