COVID-19: Portugal Regulates Use of Astra Shot

By Ahmed Rahma

Just after South Africa suspended the use of AstraZeneca COVID-19  vaccine codenamed AZD1222 due to its failure to protect clinical-trial participants, Portugal has announced an age restriction for the use of the shot developed by Oxford University.

The European country has declared that the vaccine should be preferably used for people of age 65 and below until new data is available.

This was according to Portugal’s Directorate-General for Health.

“In no situation should the vaccination of older people be delayed if only the AstraZeneca vaccine is available,” the Directorate-General of Health said on Monday in a statement posted on its website.

Portugal has already started administering Pfizer-BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. vaccines.

According to a report, on September 8, 2020, the producer of the vaccine announced a global halt to the vaccine trial while a possible adverse reaction in a participant in the United Kingdom was investigated.

On September 13, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford resumed clinical trials in the United Kingdom after regulators concluded it was safe to do so.

AstraZeneca was criticized for vaccine safety after concerns from experts, noting that the company’s refusal to provide details about serious neurological illnesses in two participants who received the experimental vaccine in Britain.

While the trial resumed in the UK, Brazil, South Africa, Japan and India, it remained on hold in the US till October 23, 2020, while the Food Drug Administration (FDA) investigated a patient illness that triggered the clinical hold, according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar.