Switzerland has refused to approve the AstraZeneca Covid, vaccine with regulators raising concerns over insufficient test data and arguing new studies are needed.
It comes after France, Sweden and Germany advised against administering the jab to those over 65 and Emmanuel Macron claimed it was almost ineffective for the age bracket.
That is despite Oxford data published this week suggesting the jab is 76 per cent effective after just one dose, and may also prevent 67 per cent of infection.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also weighed in, saying the jab is is very good and efficacious in all age groups.
Continental objections to the jab come amid a furious row between the EU and AstraZeneca over lagging supply, which has seen newly-unshackled Brexit Britain storm ahead in its immunisation roll-out.
Ursula von der Leyen claimed UK had compromised on safety during jab rollout
European Commission President is under pressure over EU s slower rollout
Mrs von der Leyen threatened to ban the export of jabs to the UK in furious row
Mrs von der Leyen pinned the fiasco on one of her deputy s Valdis Dombrovskis
Downing Street rejected criticism and said public can be confident jabs are safe
URSULA von der Leyen s swiftly aborted bid to blockade vaccine imports from Northern Ireland has left Dublin in shock and fuelled growing euroscepticism within the Irish Republic, a former diplomat has said.
| UPDATED: 14:38, Mon, Feb 1, 2021
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Meanwhile, Robert Oulds, the director of the pro-Brexit think tank the Bruges Group, said the entire episode had merely served to underline why the UK had been right to quit the EU in the first place. The European Commission announced on Friday it was triggering Article 16, a clause within the Northern Ireland Protocol, in order to prevent COVID-19 jabs from crossing Ireland’s border with the North.