Head of the Therapeutic Goods Administration John Skerritt says if doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are administered 12 weeks apart, the efficacy rate should be similar to the Pfizer vaccine.
On Sunday the TGA gave the green light for the doses to be manufactured domestically and has recently cleared four batches for distribution after testing the treatment in ACT laboratories.
Trials in the United States found the AstraZeneca vaccine was essentially 100 per cent effective at preventing serious illness, and 79 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic illness.
Mr Skerritt said the 79 per cent figure came from tests where the two doses were administered four weeks apart as opposed to the 12 weeks recommended in Australia.
“We in Australia recommend that the doses be given 12 weeks apart because that seems to push the efficacy up by another 10 per cent.
“There’s been results from trials in Scotland, not just clinical trials but real-world experience, with many hundreds of thousands, indeed over a million patients that have shown the efficacy heads towards 90.
“When the AstraZeneca is given 12 weeks apart rather than three or four weeks apart, we see the efficacy results being very similar [to Pfizer].
“This is the experience in the UK in particular where they’ve published results with not just clinical trials but with real world populations including the elderly”.
