Poland restricts AstraZeneca jab to under-60s and will use it for mass teacher vaccination

Poland’s government has become the latest to announce that it will not use the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on the elderly. Instead, the jabs will initially be given exclusively to teachers, following the recent return of the youngest children to school.

“The [AstraZeneca] vaccine will not be given to seniors,” announced Michał Dworczyk, the official overseeing Poland’s vaccine rollout, today. The decision follows a recommendation by the government’s medical advisory council to only use the vaccine on those aged between 18 and 60.

The EU’s drugs regulator approved the AstraZeneca vaccine last week, but there have been concerns over insufficient data on its effectiveness among the elderly. France, Germany and Austria have decided not to use it on those aged 65 or older.

Poland is due to receive 1.5 million doses of the vaccine from AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish firm, this month, with the first shipment arriving next week. Initially, the jabs will be given exclusively to teachers, said Dworczyk today.

The first to receive them will be those working with the youngest three school years, who returned to school last month after having been learning remotely since November. Teachers were already among the priority “group one” professions set to receive the vaccine.

“The manufacturer has not carried out any reliable research on elderly people,” said Magdalena Marczyńska, a professor of medicine and member of the government’s advisory council, quoted by Puls Medycyny.

Marczyńska noted that use of the vaccine would remain voluntary, but she said that uptake by teachers would significantly accelerate the return of all children to school.

However, following the government’s announcement on Tuesday, Poland’s biggest teachers’ union, ZNP, raised a number of concerns about the safety of the vaccine. The union’s spokeswoman, Magdalena Kaszulanis, noted that there were particular worries among teachers approaching retirement age.

“It is the consequence of the information chaos stirred by the government,” said Sławomir Broniarz, head of the ZNP, cited by Gazeta Wyborcza. He asked for confirmation from “doctors and experts” if the vaccine will allow teachers to return safely to schools.

The government is hoping to begin administering the jabs next week, with further details due to be announced this Thursday.

Poland has so far administered 1.2 million doses of coronavirus vaccines – of which 230,000 have been second doses – using those produced by Pfizer and Moderna. That puts it above the average vaccination rate in EU countries, according to data collated by researchers at the University of Oxford.

However, with just over three vaccines administered per 100 people, Poland, like other EU countries, remains well behind the likes of Israel (58), UAE (35), the United Kingdom (14) and the United States (10).

Poland has already inoculated most of its medical  and care home staff. Vaccinations of those aged over 70 are currently underway. The country’s vaccination timetable has, however, been delayed by European production and shipment bottlenecks.

Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Agnieszka Wądołowska

Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna