News Agency
PARIS
Europe’s stuttering vaccine rollout faced multiple hurdles on Friday as EU regulators said they were reviewing side effects of the Johnson & Johnson shot and France further limited its use of the AstraZeneca jab. Across Europe populations are facing some of the world’s toughest anti-virus measures, yet the epidemic refuses to be curbed.
All of France is subjected to restrictions of some form, and the country has so far doled out jabs to more than 10 million people. But it has repeatedly changed the rules on AstraZeneca’s vaccine, first over doubts about its efficacy, then over fears that it could be linked to blood clots.
On Friday it did so again, with Health Minister Olivier Veran saying citizens under 55 who had been given a first shot with AstraZeneca would be given a different vaccine for their second dose.
But shortly after he spoke, the World Health Organization said there was “no adequate data” to support switching Covid-19 vaccines between doses.
