(Adds RKI comment, background)
BERLIN, May 7 (Reuters) - Germany's vaccine committee, known
as STIKO, plans to recommend Johnson & Johnson's
COVID-19 vaccine only for people over the age of 60, German
magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday, citing no sources.
Europe's drug regulator approved J&J's vaccine last month
after examining cases of a rare blood clotting issue in U.S.
adults who received a dose. But it left it up to the European
Union's member states to decide how to use it.
A spokeswoman for the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for
infectious diseases said the institute expects STIKO to make a
recommendation on J&J's vaccine next week. She declined to
comment further.
Germany limited the shot from Anglo-Swedish drugmaker
AstraZeneca to people over 60 after post-vaccination
monitoring found rare - and sometimes fatal - cases of blood
clotting, with younger women disproportionately affected.
Health Minister Jens Spahn announced on Thursday that
Germany would make AstraZeneca available to all adults,
regardless of age, to speed up its vaccination campaign.
The decision by the federal government follows moves by
several German states to make AstraZeneca more widely available
and comes as the pace of giving shots of mainstay vaccines from
BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna picks up.
(Reporting by Maria Sheahan
Editing by Riham Alkousaa and Thomas Escritt)
Astrazeneca (AZN)
