France u-turn jab: AZ you were

It has been difficult to keep up with all the the twists and turns of Europe’s vaccine procurement programme these past nine weeks though Mr S has tried his best. Few countries have vacillated on the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine more than France, where last month nearly 1 in 4 said they would not be getting the vaccine. In a country where vaccine hesitancy is rampant, you might have hoped that political and medical leaders would have offered a strong lead to the public but apparently not.

At the beginning of March, French medical authorities finally recommended the jab to over 65s, two months after president Emmanuel Macron called the AstraZeneca jab ‘quasi-ineffective’ for this age group. Then last week the country followed other European counterparts and suspended its use of the vaccine based on a handful of blood clot cases, hours before one minister suggested suing AstraZeneca for breach of contract. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has reported that out of 20 million vaccinated in UK and EEA there were just 7 cases of clots in multiple vessels and 18 of clots in vessels leading to brain.