Britain warns allergy-prone people against taking vaccine

World

Published: 2020-12-09 17:55

Last Updated: 2024-03-26 03:33


Photo: USA Today
Photo: USA Today

 

Wednesday, the British health authorities recommended not to administer the Pfizer/Biontec vaccine to people who have suffered in the past from "severe allergies," as two people showed a bad reaction after receiving the first dose.

Britain was the first country to authorize the use of this vaccine, and Tuesday it began a large-scale vaccination campaign that currently includes health care workers and the elderly.

The medical director of the National Health Service in England, Stephen Boyce, said that "two people who had severe allergies, showed a bad reaction" after receiving the vaccine.

"They are both recovering well," he added.

As a result, the British Medicines Authority issued a recommendation aimed at not vaccinating "everyone with a history of severe allergies to vaccines, medicines and food."

In a first stage, about 800,000 doses of this vaccine will be distributed out of the forty million requested by the government.

Pfizer president Albert Burla said during a virtual roundtable in Geneva that despite the rapid introduction of the vaccine on the market, "we did not reduce" its safety.

Britain is the country most affected by the epidemic in Europe, with more than 62,000 deaths.

The success of the vaccination appears essential to the Boris Johnson government, which is being criticized for mishandling the pandemic crisis and facing the anger at some MPs over the restrictions imposed in large parts of the country, with enormous economic and social costs.

Senior British doctor, Chris Whitty, Wednesday, in response to questions from a parliamentary committee, said that "three or four vaccines" should be available by mid-year 2021 in the United Kingdom.

He pointed out that "great moral, political and medical choices" will have to be made to determine who will receive the vaccine after the group that has been given priority and includes about twenty million people, including health care workers and the most vulnerable people, which the authorities hope will achieve by next spring.

In front of the same parliamentary committee, the President of the British Drug Authority, John Raine, announced that the authority is studying "intensively and with high scientific precision" the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in Britain.

Meanwhile, Chris Whitty said it was "too early" to lift restrictions that included closing bars and restaurants in some parts of the country or preventing different families from meeting outside.

"We will not have enough protection in the next three months," which are sensitive months due to the onset of winter, he said, noting that the gradual lifting of restrictions would be "a political decision based on science."