Nine countries on Thursday announced a temporary halt to the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine amid reports of side effects.
Washington Post reported that Italy, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg and Iceland have recorded cases of patients developing post-jab blood clots.
This is just as the manufacturer and Europe’s medicines watchdog insisted the vaccine was safe.
Denmark was the first to announce its suspension, “following reports of serious cases of blood clots” among people who had received the vaccine, the country’s Health Authority said in a statement.
It stressed the move was precautionary, and that it has not been determined, at the time being, that there is a link between the vaccine and the blood clots”.
As of March 9, about 22 cases of blood clots had been reported among more than three million people vaccinated in the European Economic Area, the European Medicines Agency said.
Austria announced on Monday that it had suspended the use of a batch of AstraZeneca vaccines after a 49-year-old nurse died of “severe blood coagulation problems” days after receiving an anti-coronavirus shot.
Four other European countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxemburg — have also suspended the use of vaccines from this batch, which was sent to 17 European countries and consisted of one million jabs.
Denmark, however, suspended the use of all of its AstraZeneca supply, as did Iceland and Norway in subsequent announcements on Thursday citing similar concerns.
On Wednesday, the EMA said a preliminary probe showed that the batch of AstraZeneca vaccines used in Austria was likely not to blame for the nurse’s death.
AFP also reported that AstraZeneca, an Anglo-Swedish company that developed the vaccine with Oxford University, had defended the safety of its product.
“The safety of the vaccine has been extensively studied in phase III clinical trials and peer-reviewed data confirms the vaccine has been generally well-tolerated,” a spokesman for the group said.
Britain, whose widely-praised vaccine rollout has been largely underpinned by the AstraZeneca jab, also defended it as “both safe and effective”.
The Danish suspension, which would be reviewed after two weeks, is expected to slow down the country’s vaccination campaign.
Denmark now expects to have its entire adult population vaccinated by mid-August instead of early July, the health authority said.
“We are of course saddened by this news,” said Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen. Frederiksen, who has pushed for the production of more vaccines and has formed a controversial alliance with Austria and Israel to do so, defended the Danish health authorities’ decision.
“There is always a risk associated with vaccines,” she told reporters. “Things have gone well in Denmark, but there are some risks linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine that needs to be examined more closely. That seems to me to be the right way to proceed.”
Danish Health Authority director Soren Brostrom stressed that “we have not terminated the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, we are just pausing its use”. “There is broad documentation proving that the vaccine is both safe and efficient,” Brostrom said.
“But both we and the Danish Medicines Agency must act on information about possible serious side effects, both in Denmark and in other European countries,” Denmark said one person had died after receiving the vaccine.
The EMA has launched an investigation into that death. In the Scandinavian country of 5.8 million, around 25 per cent of those who have received the first dose were given the AstraZeneca jab.
In total, 3.8 per cent of the population has received two doses of vaccine and 13.4 per cent at least one dose.
