Germany, France and other EU countries completely suspend vaccination against AstraZeneca

UPDATE March 15, 22.56.2018 Portugal also announced the suspension of the vaccination process with Astra Zeneca, Diario de Noticias reported. The decision was taken as a “precautionary measure” and was presented at a press conference attended by the general director of the Ministry of Health, Graça Freitas, and the coordinator of the Covid-19 vaccination working group, Henrique Gouveia e Melo. 80,000 people remain on hold, most of them employees of the educational system.

UPDATE March 15, 22.40: The Romanian authorities have decided to continue the vaccination campaign with AstaZeneca serum, following a meeting of the Vaccination Committee, which took place this afternoon.

Romanian officials claim that the decision was made after analyzing the adverse reaction reports recorded in Romania, but also the arguments and facts invoked by the other countries.

The CNCAV also cites today’s announcement from the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which recommends continuing vaccination, emphasizing that the benefits of vaccination in preventing severe forms of COVID-19 and death outweigh the risk of side effects. .

UPDATE March 15, 21.00: The European Medicines Agency will examine the situation of the AstraZeneca vaccine only on Thursday, in an extraordinary meeting announced by the institution.

“Experts are analyzing in detail all the available data and the clinical circumstances surrounding specific cases to determine if the vaccine may have contributed or if the events have other causes,” the European Medicines Agency said in a statement.

UPDATE March 15, 8:55 pm: Slovenia suspended AstraZeneca vaccination with AstraZeneca on Monday “as a precaution,” and was added to the list of countries that have taken the measure for fear of blood clots, according to France Presse, quoted by HotNews.

“We have made the decision to temporarily suspend the use of the vaccine in the Swedish-British laboratory AstraZeneca to guarantee the highest possible level of safety for our fellow citizens,” Health Minister Janez Poklukar told a press conference.

UPDATE March 15 19.35: Spain has announced that it will suspend vaccination with AstraZeneca for the next 15 days, writes El País. The announcement was made by the country’s health minister, after other European states made a similar decision as a precautionary measure.

Faced with the cascade of reactions in the EU, Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus, director of the World Health Organization (WHO), made clarifications in the COVID briefing.

“Stopping vaccination with AstraZeneca does not mean that blood clots are related to immunization, but it is a precautionary measure, showing that surveillance mechanisms are working,” said the WHO chief.

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Germany and France were the first to decide on Monday to temporarily stop immunization with the vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca, pending a clear opinion on its safety from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

This is an important signal, given that both Berlin and Paris have so far been reluctant to stop, even temporarily, immunization with this vaccine.

The Berlin Health Ministry said the decision was made on the recommendation of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, the German vaccine regulator.

“Following new information on the occurrence of cerebral vein thrombosis in connection with vaccination in Germany and Europe, the Paul Ehrlich Institute considers that a comprehensive investigation is needed,” the ministry said, according to Deutsche Welle.

The ministry also said that the European Medicines Agency will decide “whether and how the new information will affect the authorization of the vaccine”, following the ongoing investigation.

A similar move was announced almost immediately by French President Emmanuel Macron, writes Le Monde.

“The decision, which was taken as a precaution, is to suspend the AstraZeneca vaccination in the hope that we can quickly resume it if the EMA gives the green light,” Macron said.

Italy goes from partial to full suspension of vaccination with AstraZeneca

Several European countries, including Romania and Bulgaria, have already decided to discontinue vaccination with AstraZeneca, following a series of reports of blood clots among vaccinated people.

The alleged cases also involved deaths in Italy, Austria and Denmark.

Denmark, Norway and Iceland preferred to completely suspend immunization with AstraZeneca, while other states, including Austria, Italy or Romania, suspended immunization with a certain batch of suspect vaccines.

On Sunday and Monday, Ireland and the Netherlands joined the states that suspended immunization with this vaccine. The Netherlands has reported 10 cases of serious side effects after inoculation with the anti-COVID-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca, a Dutch drug control center said on Monday, hours after the government announced the suspension of use. serum.

The Dutch Health Ministry said it expected to resume vaccination with AstraZeneca in a few weeks, and said the suspension was just a “break” taken as a precaution.

But on Monday, Berlin had refused to join the cautious countries.

Last week, Lothar Wieler, director of the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, said, for example, that there was no evidence that patients who received the vaccine were more likely to develop blood clots than unvaccinated people.

AstraZeneca and EMA defend the vaccine

This position was supported by AstraZeneca, the European Medicines Agency and British officials, who have so far vaccinated millions of people with the serum produced by AstraZeneca.

AstraZeneca announced Sunday that it had completed an analysis of its serum anti-COVID-19 vaccination process and found no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots in people inoculated with the vaccine.

“A careful analysis of all safety data after vaccination of more than 17 million people in the European Union and the United Kingdom with the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine did not reveal any evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, venous thrombosis deep or thrombocytopenia in there is no defined age group, gender, batch or in a particular country, “the pharmaceutical company said in a statement cited by Reuters and DPA.

“The number of reported blood clot cases in this group (17 million people) is less than the hundreds of cases that would be expected to occur in the general population,” says Ann Taylor, AstraZeneca’s chief medical officer.

The EMA noted that there is currently no evidence of an increased risk of blood clotting (thrombosis) in people vaccinated with this serum.

“The information available at this stage indicates that the number of thromboembolisms in vaccinated people is not higher than that observed in the general population,” the European agency said in a statement cited by France Presse.

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