Vaccination Qld: Chief health officer Jeannette Young says under-40s ‘should stick with Pfizer’

Young Queenslanders have been thrown into a state of confusion with mixed messages from leaders as to whether they should have the AstraZeneca vaccine or not, but the message is clear from the state’s chief health officer.

Young Queenslanders have been thrown into a state of confusion with mixed messages from leaders as to whether they should have the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Following Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcement that under 40s could have the AstraZeneca shot, the state’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has warned that clinical advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) remained unchanged and under-40s should get the Pfizer jab.

Dr Young said she was not in a position where she would have to ask fit, young and healthy people to “put their health on the line getting a vaccine that could potentially significantly harm them”.

“You look across the country, our active case numbers are in the hundreds,” she said.

“We are not as Indonesia is.

“I mean if I was the chief health officer in Indonesia, I might be giving different advice but I’m here in Queensland.”

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has taken the stance that the decision lies in the hands of the GP and the patient.

Queensland chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Bruce Willett. Pic Tara Croser.

But the Queensland chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Bruce Willett agreed with Dr Young that Pfizer was still the best option for young people, and they should wait for Pfizer supplies to arrive in the country in the middle of next month.

Panicked by the state’s latest lockdown, under 40s were tempted by the chance to be vaccinated quickly and joined the long queue of Queenslanders at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital vaccination hub yesterday.

“As the Prime Minister has said, if you are under 40 you can go and talk to your own GP if you think you are at a particularly high risk and you want to get vaccinated now. If the GP and them have a conversation and believe the risk is warranted — they need to understand what the risks are. The Commonwealth has agreed to indemnify those GPs should that person get any of those side effects that can be quite catastrophic,” Dr Young said.

“The clinical advice from ATAGI is that people under the age of 60 should preferentially get Pfizer, the advice in the UK is that people under the age of 40 should get Pfizer. That’s the clinical advice but there are some people who have been asking to get AstraZeneca although the clinical advice is they preferentially should not,” she said.

In Australia, the risk of getting thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), a serious blood clotting condition, has been estimated at 3.1 per 100,000 for those aged under 50 years old.

Dr Willett said that adhering to ATAGI’s clinical advice was still the priority of GPs and anyone under 40 asking for an AstraZeneca jab would be carefully counselled about the risks.