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A healthcare professional in Germany administered the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 3, just days before the country suspended use of the vaccine.
Photo:
Press Action / Zuma Press
BERLIN – Germany, France and Italy have joined a group of small European countries that have temporarily stopped administering Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by AstraZeneca AZN -0.12%
PLC, saying the move was preventative amid a small number of reported blood clotting cases on the mainland.
Denmark said last week it had suspended AstraZeneca injections for two weeks following reports of blood clotting, and several other European countries quickly followed suit, saying they were doing so by caution. Norway, Ireland and the Netherlands are among the countries that have suspended vaccination with AstraZeneca vaccine.
Health regulators in the UK and Europe, as well as AstraZeneca and its vaccine development partners at the University of Oxford, say there is no known link between severe coagulation and injection. AstraZeneca said the number of cases of blood clotting among the estimated 17 million people in the European Union and UK who have received the vaccine is lower than in the general population.
The European medicines regulator said last week it was looking at around 30 reported cases of severe coagulation, out of around five million people who received the vaccine in the block. Last week, the regulator, the European Medicines Agency, said “the benefits of the vaccine always outweigh the risks” and continued to recommend its use. The agency said most of the side effects were mild or moderate. Clinical trials have not raised any signs that blood clotting is a risk.
Write to Bojan Pancevski at [email protected] and Jenny Strasburg at [email protected]
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