BERLIN—Germany’s vaccine authority will recommend the government ban AstraZeneca PLC’s Covid-19 vaccine for people younger than 60 following fresh blood-clotting incidents among recipients, an official at the country’s disease-control agency said Tuesday—potentially presenting the country’s sputtering vaccine rollout with fresh delays.
The final decision on changing who may receive the AstraZeneca vaccine in Germany rests with the federal government, but local authorities from Berlin to Munich and individual hospitals elsewhere were already anticipating a partial ban on Tuesday by withholding the shot for younger recipients.
The change of recommendation comes 12 days after the European Medicines Agency, the EU drug regulator, said the vaccine was “safe and effective” and didn’t increase the risk of blood clots.
Like other European Union countries, Germany has struggled to ramp up vaccinations amid a shortage of doses and bureaucratic and logistical bottlenecks. Barring anyone under 60 from receiving the shot could make it hard for the government to reach its revised target of offering all residents a vaccine by the end of September.
It could also exacerbate already widespread misgivings about the vaccine. Germany originally authorized the shot only for those under 65 due to a lack of data about efficacy in older age groups before briefly banning it altogether for several days earlier in March amid concerns about rare blood clotting incidents following the injections.
