Toronto, 16 March – This morning, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for those over the age of 65 by changing their earlier recommendation, the age group below the age of 65. The announcement was made at the press conference in presence of Health Minister Patti Hajdu and Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne by the chief medical officer, Dr. Teresa Tam and deputy chief medical officer Dr. Howard Njoo.
Earlier this month, following the NACI’s recommendation, the regulatory body Health Canada approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for those less than 65 years of age.
At that time NACI considered the trial data of AstraZeneca. But after December 7, they did not consider the effectiveness of this vaccine in the case of the elderly in different countries.
NACI Chairman Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh said her committee had modified the recommendation based on the actual effectiveness of the vaccine, especially considering the results used in the UK over the age of 65. “If people think we’re in a dilemma, it’s happening on the basis of data evidence,” she told in a news conference.
On the other hand, Dalhousie University’s pediatrics and global vaccine hesitancy expert, Noni MacDonald said, “Canadians need to understand that science is changeable. The key is to give everyone the right advice on the changing nature of science. Here it is now seen that in a real sense the AstraZeneca vaccine has reduced mortality due to corona disease for those over 65 years of age. We know that this change in thinking is a cause for concern, but we need to be aware of the change in science, and that’s a good thing.”
However, Dr. Caroline Quach-Than said, there needs to be better communication between NACI and Health Canada to eliminate ambiguity. “I think the only thing that I would say would have been done differently is the communications support so that we would have been able to explain all this exactly as we’re doing today,” she said. I think the Public Health Agency of Canada has now recognized that this support was absolutely necessary and this is now put in place, could have been done earlier. But, you know, it’s the first pandemic of this size.”
Although the NACI has recommended that the AstraZeneca vaccine be approved for all ages considering the viral factors, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, as the mRNA vaccine, remain applicable to the elderly on a priority basis, which NACI committee has mentioned in their statement.
The Ontario Covid-19 vaccine task force member and infectious disease specialist Isaac Bogoc said, he’s worried that recommendation could also cause confusion and hesitancy. He clarified that, “The recommendation basically suggests that people over the age of 65 should preferentially get an mRNA vaccine over this vaccine and I think it’s premature to compare vaccines head-to-head at this point in time for a variety of reasons. When we also put this in the context of Canada being in the midst of a public health emergency where we know all available vaccines will significantly reduce the risk of getting the infection … we wouldn’t certainly want anyone to delay getting a potentially lifesaving vaccine while waiting for another vaccine and there’s some concern that that could happen. And in fact we’re already hearing about stories of people delaying getting vaccine A for vaccine B.”