Sweden: the country threw away AstraZeneca vaccines

The government of Sweden has admitted throwing away an unknown number of doses of AstraZeneca, while several people have suspended their vaccination, according to the news site ABC.

As Swedish state agency TT explained to ABC, AstraZeneca doses should be used within a few hours. In other words, since they are removed from refrigeration, they have a short shelf life.

It is for this reason that in Sweden many AstraZeneca vaccines ended up in the garbage cans of Gothenburg and Stockholm. Due to the cancellations of several people, the health staff could not find in the short time other candidates to apply the doses to.

Although Swedish health authorities said several hundred doses had been rejected according to initial calculations, they could not determine the exact extent of the phenomenon that occurred.

After some doubts about the adverse effects of the vaccine, some European countries have suspended or restricted its use. In the case of Sweden, The country recommends the use of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford in people over 65.

The European Union (EU) regulator, the European Medicines Agency, reported on April 7 that the AstraZeneca vaccine appeared to be the cause unusual incidents of coagulation in 1 in 100,000 administered doses

According to figures from the EMA, as of April 4, 222 cases of atypical thrombosis had been detected after 34 million injections performed with AstraZeneca in the 30 countries of the European Economic Area (EU, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein) and in the United Kingdom. With a balance of 18 dead until March 22.

According to the EMA, for now, the majority of AstraZeneca cases involved “women under the age of 60”. However, from the agency they concluded: “The overall benefits of the vaccine in preventing Covid-19 outweigh the risks of side effects.”

THE NATION