Fears Of Blood Clotting From AstraZeneca's COVID-19 Vaccine, Australia Adds Pfizer Vaccine Order

PfizerBiontech Vaccine and AstraZeneca Vaccine (Collage/VOI)

JAKARTA - Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced his country is doubling Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine orders Friday, April 9. The announcement comes as Australia's vaccination program plans change, due to concerns about the risk of blood clotting associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

As of Thursday night, Australia was basing most of its vaccination program on the AstraZeneca vaccine. Australia is known to order 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to be made domestically by biopharma CSL Ltd., enough to vaccinate its 25 million population, where it uses two injection doses.

Considering the decision of some countries not to provide AstraZeneca vaccines to those under the age of 55-60, Australia also limits AstraZeneca vaccine users to 12 million people under the age of 50.

"Instead, Australia chose to double Pfizer's vaccine order, to about 40 million doses to be delivered by the end of the year, enough for 4/5 of the population", PM Morisson said, as reported by Reuters on Friday, April 9.

The policy change to Pfizer effectively ended plans to vaccinate the entire population by the end of October.

"This is not a ban on AstraZeneca vaccines. For those over the age of 50, there is a strong push to use the AstraZeneca vaccine", Morrison told reporters in Canberra after a national cabinet meeting to discuss tackling COVID-19.

After Australia opened a quarantine-free travel zone with the neighboring country, New Zealand, Morrison said he hoped to make similar arrangements elsewhere in the region. According to him, this is only possible with the growing number of Australians receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

However, Health Minister Brendan Murphy said that this policy change was done with great care, given the low level of possible side effects caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine.

AstraZeneca claims to understand and respect Australia's decision while working with regulators around the world to understand individual cases, epidemiology, and possible mechanisms that could explain rare blood clots.

In addition to the AstraZeneca and Pfizer contracts, Australia ordered 51 million doses of the vaccine being trialed by US pharmaceutical giant Novavax Inc, but local authorities said they did not expect to approve the product until the end of 2021.

Last January, the Australian Government targeted four million COVID-19 vaccinations by the end of March. To date, however, the figure has only reached 1 million more, according to authorities.

"Australians will not forget who is responsible for failing to deliver on what was promised and its own commitments", Opposition Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese told reporters on Friday.

"They should listen to the expert advice given to the government, and of course to all governments, about not putting all our eggs in one basket", he said.