Countries should also avoid giving the Astrazeneca coronavirus vaccine to people over 60, the head of the EU drug regulator's Covid-19 task force was quoted as saying, amid fears over rare blood clotting and as more vaccines become available.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) considers the Astrazeneca shot safe for all age groups. However several European Union member states have stopped administering it to people below a certain age, usually ranging from 50 to 65, restricting its use to the older population, due to the rare cases of blood clotting, mainly among young people.

“In a pandemic context, our position was and is that the risk-benefit ratio remains favourable for all age groups,” Covid-19 task force chief Marco Cavaleri told the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

However, as the number of Covid-19 cases is falling and taking into account that the younger population is less exposed to Covid-19 related risks, Cavaleri said it would be better to use on them Covid-19 vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, such as Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.