No change to age eligibility for AstraZeneca vaccine in Atlantic Canada (update)

The Atlantic provinces won't be lowering the age eligibility for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. 

That decision was made on the advice of the region's chief medical officers of health in a meeting of the Council of Atlantic Premiers on Tuesday, according to a release. 

“All four provinces will continue to provide the AstraZeneca vaccine to Atlantic Canadians over the age of 55 to help slow the spread of COVID-19,” reads the release.

“Premiers will continue to monitor the use of this vaccine, based on expert advice and an assessment of risks and benefits to Atlantic Canadians.”

It comes as some provinces, including B.C., Alberta and Ontario, have lowered the minimum age to 40 amid a third wave of COVID-19. 

The AstraZeneca vaccine is licenced by Health Canada be given to anyone over the age of 18, however the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) has recommended that it only be offered to those 55 and older.

Canada's health minister has said provinces can make their own decisions on whether to lower the age of eligibility or follow the NACI recommendation.

At a Tuesday briefing, Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health said with cases surging in other parts of the country, it makes sense for some provinces to drop the age limit, but at this point, our epidemiology here allows us to be more restrictive.

“The provinces that are lowering the age group, it's because the evidence would say that even at that lower age — down to 40 — that when there's a high prevalence of COVID, there's a significantly increased risk of a severe outcome for somebody in that age group from COVID. So, there's less risk from the vaccine than there is from COVID,” he explained. 

“But [NACI's] statement also says that in places of low prevalence, which so far we are in Nova Scotia, people below age 55, the risk of a severe outcome — ending up in hospital or even dying — is greater for the vaccine than it is from COVID.”

It's been estimated the odds of getting a blood clot from the vaccine are between one in 100,000 and one in 250,000.

According to Alberta's chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw, by comparison, about one in four people hospitalized with COVID-19 will experience a blood clot.

With files from Meghan Groff and the Canadian Press