THE HAGUE – Leading EU countries said yesterday they would resume AstraZeneca vaccinations after the European medical regulator said the jab is “safe and effective” and not associated with a higher blood clot risk after days of commotion around the shot.
The closely-watched announcement from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) came after the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Britain’s health watchdog both said the vaccine was safe, adding that it was far riskier to not get the shot as several countries face a worrying rise in coronavirus cases.
After the EMA’s announcement a raft of European countries said they would soon resume vaccinations, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
France became the latest nation to toughen Covid-19 restrictions, announcing a month-long limited lockdown for Paris and several other regions to try and stave off a third wave of infections that has overwhelmed hospitals.
The EMA’s chief Emer Cooke said that after an investigation into the AstraZeneca jab, its “committee has come to a clear scientific conclusion: this is a safe and effective vaccine”.
“The committee also concluded that the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of thromboembolic events or blood clots,” she added.
However, the agency said it “cannot rule out definitively” a link to a rare clotting disorder.
The UK health regulator also said there were no links between blood clots and the Pfizer vaccine.
The WHO repeated that it was better to take the AstraZeneca vaccine than not.
AstraZeneca’s chief medical officer Ann Taylor said that “vaccine safety is paramount and we welcome the regulators’ decisions which affirm the overwhelming benefit of our vaccine in stopping the pandemic”.
However, Norway and Sweden said they were not ready to resume using the vaccine.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health said it “took note” of the EMA’s ruling, but it was “premature” to draw conclusions and it would announce its own opinion by the end of next week.
The furore around the jab has marred the global vaccine drive aimed at ending a pandemic that has killed more than 2.6 million people, and comes as several countries report jumps in new cases. – AFP, March 19, 2021
