The Health Ministry belonging to the Central Government has pledged to decide tomorrow on whether to administer the second dosage of AstraZeneca.

The Junta is holding them to it, threatening to make the decisiion for themselves and go their separate way if need be.

There are 43,669 people, who have already had their first AstraZeneca jab, waiting on this decision, all of whom belong to the essential public services; i.e., teachers, police officers and still some health workers.

In some cases, they have been in limbo since the 8th of April when the health authorities vetoed the administering of this brand of vaccine for those under 60 because of “unusual thrombotic episodes.’

The AstraZeneca campaign for these sectors began on the 22nd of February in Fermesa (Granada exhibition hall), with the first group some 10,000 teachers and then later a further 4,000. Yet now, three months have passed since these first vaccinations, which is the elapse stipulated by the drug makers second shot.

Yet the Ministry of Public Health has completely ignored advice given to the 27 national health ministries from European Medicines Agency on two occasions, recommending the administering of the second jab with the same vaccine and not to ‘experiment’ with vaccine cocktails; i.e., giving a different vaccine to complete the second dosage.

Spain has not only ignored this advice from the EMA but has decided to use a Spanish research (CombiVacs) concerning mixing different types of vaccines. The research is being carried out by the Instituto Carlos III on 600 under 60s volunteers, who received the first jab with AstraZeneca and the second with Pfizer.

But the Junta de Andalucía is fed up with these delays and is chomping at the bit to just go ahead and administer a second AstraZeneca jab. After several weeks requesting permission but having received no reply, the Junta has basically said, “decide tomorrow or we go ahead on our own.”

More and more AstraZeneca supplies are arriving and nobody is using them with already 200,000 doses in stores.

Editorial comment: the Carlos III research is a it of a joke because it only takes 600 volunteers, 400 of who received the Pfizer jab and the 200 received no second jab at all – in other words research with a ridiculously small basis, where they compared two thirds against, in effect. nobody; had the 200 received a second AstraZeneca jab, you could make a comparison, if you forget that 400 people is a completely inadequate number to base a decision upon.

(News: Andalucia)