Berlin (AFP)

Berlin on Tuesday refuted information from two German media outlets, which cited anonymous sources in government, that the AstraZeneca laboratory's Covid-19 vaccine was not effective enough for people over 65.

The newspapers "confused" several data located in studies on the effectiveness of the vaccine, currently evaluated by the European health authorities, said the Ministry of Health, in a statement sent to AFP.

The daily Bild and the business newspaper Handelsblatt said Monday evening that the German government doubted the effectiveness of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, on people over the age of 65 .

According to Handelsblatt, who claimed government sources, Berlin was counting on an efficacy of only 8% for this age group, threatening the approval of the vaccine.

"It seems that at first glance, the articles have confused two things," the health ministry said.

According to the authorities, the media confused the proportion of people "between 56 and 69 years old", having participated in the evaluation studies of the vaccine amounting to "8%", and its rate of effectiveness for those over 65 years old. .

The British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has already defended the effectiveness of its vaccine on Monday evening.

"Articles according to which the efficacy of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine is only 8% in adults over 65 are completely false," a spokesperson for AstraZeneca said in a statement to AFP.

The British laboratory, whose vaccine is already authorized and widely deployed in the United Kingdom, further explains in its press release that it published scientific data in the journal The Lancet in November, "showing that the elderly have shown strong immune responses to vaccine, 100% of them having generated specific antibodies after the second dose ".

Bild, also under cover of government sources, wrote that Angela Merkel's coalition expected the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine, which is due to receive the EU regulatory green light on Friday, not to be licensed for those over 65 years old, with a significant impact on the vaccination strategy of many countries.

Contacted by AFP, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which could take a decision in the coming days for the approval of this vaccine, for its part refused to comment on "an ongoing evaluation".

AstraZeneca was the subject of a call to order from the European Commission on Monday after announcing last week that deliveries of its Covid vaccine would be lower than expected in the first quarter due to a "drop in yield "at a European manufacturing site.

Brussels deemed these delays in delivery "unacceptable" and now demanded "transparency" on the export outside the EU of the doses produced there.

© 2021 AFP