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Ireland’s top health advisers are considering a decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) that the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is “safe and effective”.
AstraZeneca’s jab throwing was stopped here in an “abundance of caution” after concerns arose around blood clots.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ronan Glynn said he appreciated the EMA making its position clear.
He said the ruling will be further discussed tonight and tomorrow morning before a position is reached.
Speaking at the National Public Health Emergency Team press conference, Dr. Glynn said that the National Immunization Advisory Committee was meeting with its counterparts across Europe following the EMA’s statement on the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine.
“They will consider it further tonight and tomorrow morning, and the HPRA is reviewing the statement and the findings,” he said.
“We will be deliberating among the organizations tonight and tomorrow morning, and we will post an update tomorrow once we have reached a position.”
Earlier, HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid said the decision to stop the AstraZeneca coup demonstrated the “great emphasis we will continually place on the safety of the population.”
He added: “Just to reassure us, we will respond quickly to any decision that is recommended to us and communicated to us.
“Despite this disappointment, we should, in my opinion, say that the glass is half full.
“We have administered around 620,000 vaccines and we are witnessing, every day, the collapse of infection rates among residents of long-term care facilities, health workers and the elderly groups of the population.”
The HSE predicts that between 70,000 and 75,000 vaccines will be administered to the population over 70 years of age next week.
Reid said there was “some concern” that the number of daily cases was no longer falling as it had in recent weeks.
“There are early warning signs for us that the brakes are being applied slightly in terms of improvements that we have been making over the last few weeks,” he said.
“Because the rate of decline in hospitalizations for Covid patients has slowed down, especially in recent weeks, it has actually stalled.
“And the slowdown in the reduction of hospitalized cases reflects the slowdown in the reduction of overall cases occurring in the community.”
He added: “Community testing demand has increased by more than 9% in the last week, community testing demand has increased for the first time in five weeks.”
“That’s just one of the first trends, early warning indicators that I mentioned earlier.”
The health service has already performed four million coronavirus tests and made one million close contact calls.
In the seven days to March 17, 3,646 new cases were reported, a 6% increase over the previous week.
Nearly 46% of new cases in the past two weeks were among people ages 19 to 44.
About 26% of new cases in that period occurred among children 0 to 18 years old, and about 8.6% among people 65 years and older.
In the last 14 days, of the 7,048 new cases reported between March 3 and 16, 6% of them (422) had been admitted to the hospital.
Meanwhile, as of March 15, 620,580 doses of coronavirus vaccine had been administered in Ireland.
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