Nearly everyone can be vaccinated with one or other of the COVID-19 vaccines, with blanket medical contraindication exceptionally rare, Sydney immunologist Professor Graeme Stewart suggests.

Although GPs report increasing demand to provide exemptions as vaccination is mandated for an increasing number of public-facing professions, Professor Stewart says there is likely an appropriate vaccine product for everyone.

When it comes to people for whom all three available vaccines are contraindicated, the numbers would be almost zero, says Professor Stewart, from the Westmead Institute for Medical Research.

“The number of people who would have an accepted contraindication to AstraZeneca, such as antiphospholipid syndrome with thrombosis, and at the same time an accepted contraindication to Pfizer, such as recent myocarditis, would be fewer than 10 in Australia,” he told Australian Doctor.