Paraguay: out of “caution”, they stop using the AstraZeneca vaccine | the Chronicle

Paraguayan health authorities have decided to suspend for “caution“the use of coronavirus vaccine from the Swedish-British laboratory AstraZeneca in people under 55, while calling on those vaccinated with the first dose of the drug to calm down, local media reported.

In an administrative circular, the Directorate of the National Program for Immunopreventable Diseases and the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) ordered the suspension administration that the inoculant in under 55 and in people with conditions and pathologies predisposing to thromboembolic events, reported Paraguayan news agency IP.

The director of the PAI, Héctor Castro, asked those who received the first dose to reassure themselves and explained that they will be subjected to “close pharmacovigilance “ while waiting for scientific evidence to define the next step.

“I want to ask my colleagues to be calm. The association with thrombotic or thromboembolic phenomena is absolutely rare in the number of vaccines that are offered, but as a precautionary principle, their application must now be stopped.», He expressed.

In this sense, he stressed that vaccines will be intended for sectors where they can be more useful and safer, such as adult adults, to complete the diagram later, with the two doses. “What we want is what is best for the people and we are working on it, this week we will decide what to do”, He said Castro.

According to the PAI circular, health authorities await final decisions in this regard from regulatory bodies such as European Medicines Agency (EMA). This institution said that the clots are a side effect “very rare” vaccine Astrazeneca and encouraged to continue administering it, as only 222 cases of thrombosis after 34 million injections.