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BERLIN: Germany, France and Italy said on Monday (March 15) that they would discontinue COVID-19 injections from AstraZeneca after several countries reported possible serious side effects, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said there were no a proven link that people shouldn’t. panic.
Still, the decision by the three largest countries in the European Union to put vaccines on hold with the AstraZeneca injection put the already fierce vaccination campaign in disarray in all 27 EU countries.
Denmark and Norway stopped injecting last week after reporting isolated cases of bleeding, blood clots and a low platelet count. Iceland and Bulgaria followed suit and Ireland and the Netherlands announced suspensions on Sunday.
Spain will stop using the vaccine for at least 15 days, Cadena Ser radio reported, citing unidentified sources.
The WHO chief scientist reiterated Monday that no deaths related to COVID-19 vaccines have been documented.
“We don’t want people to panic,” Soumya Swaminathan said at a virtual press conference, adding that so far there has been no association between so-called “thromboembolic events” reported in some countries and COVID-19 injections.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said an advisory committee meeting on AstraZeneca would take place on Tuesday. The EU drug regulator EMA will also meet this week to assess the information collected on whether the injection of AstraZeneca contributed to thromboembolic events in the inoculated.
The actions of some of the largest and most populous countries in Europe will deepen concerns about the slow launch of vaccines in the region, which has been plagued by shortages due to problems in vaccine production, including that of AstraZeneca.
Germany warned last week it was facing a third wave of infections, Italy is stepping up lockdowns and hospitals in the Paris region are close to being overloaded.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn said that although the risk of blood clots was low, it could not be ruled out.
“This is a professional decision, not a political one,” Spahn said, adding that he was following a recommendation from the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Germany’s vaccine regulator.
France said it would suspend use of the vaccine pending an evaluation by the EMA.
“The decision taken, also in accordance with our European policy, is to suspend, as a precaution, vaccination with the AZ injection, in the hope that we can quickly resume it if the EMA guidance allows it,” said French President Emmanuel Macron .
Italy said its suspension was a “precautionary and temporary measure” pending the EMA’s ruling.
“The EMA will meet soon to clarify any doubts so that the AstraZeneca vaccine can be safely resumed in the vaccination campaign as soon as possible,” said Gianni Rezza, Director General for Prevention at the Italian Ministry of Health.
Austria and Spain have stopped using private lots, and prosecutors in the Piedmont region of northern Italy previously seized 393,600 doses following the death of a man hours after being vaccinated. It was the second region to do so after Sicily, where two people had died shortly after being shot.
The WHO called on countries not to suspend vaccines against a disease that has caused more than 2.7 million deaths worldwide. WHO Director-General Tedros said systems exist to protect public health.
“This does not necessarily mean that these events are related to COVID-19 vaccination, but it is routine practice to investigate them and shows that the surveillance system is working and that there are effective controls,” he said at the press conference.
The UK said it had no concerns, while Poland said it thought the benefits outweighed any risks.
The EMA has said that as of March 10, a total of 30 cases of blood clotting had been reported among about 5 million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area, which links 30 European countries.
Michael Head, a senior researcher in global health at the University of Southampton, said the decisions by France, Germany and others seemed puzzling.
“The data we have suggests that the number of adverse events related to blood clots is the same (and possibly actually lower) in vaccinated groups compared to unvaccinated populations,” he said, adding that stopping a program vaccination had consequences.
“This results in delays in protecting people and the potential for doubts about vaccines to grow, as a result of people seeing the headlines and understandably worrying. There is still no evidence of data that really justifies it. these decisions. “
READ: WHO urges world not to stop COVID-19 vaccines as AstraZeneca injection divides Europe
However, a senior German doctor in infectious diseases said that the incidence of history of 2-5 thromboses per million per year was significantly lower than the number of 7 out of 1.6 million vaccinated people cited by the Ministry of Health of Germany.
“This should be the reason for suspending vaccination in Germany until all cases, including suspected cases in Germany and Europe, have been fully clarified,” said Clemens Wendtner, head of the special unit for highly contagious infections that threaten the life at the Schwabing Clinic. in Munich.
‘UNUSUAL’ SYMPTOMS
AstraZeneca’s vaccine was one of the first and cheapest to be developed and launched in volume since the coronavirus was first identified in central China in late 2019, and is expected to be the mainstay of vaccination programs. in much of the developing world.
Thailand announced plans on Monday to go ahead with the injection from the Anglo-Swedish firm after suspending its use on Friday, but Indonesia said it would wait for the WHO to report.
The WHO said its advisory panel was reviewing reports related to the injection and would publish its findings as soon as possible. But he said he is unlikely to change his recommendations, issued last month, for widespread use, even in countries where the South African variant of the virus may reduce its effectiveness.
The EMA has also said that there was no indication that the events were caused by vaccination and that the number of reported blood clots was not greater than that seen in the general population.
But the handful of side effects reported in Europe have disrupted vaccination programs already stumbling over slow launches and vaccine skepticism in some countries.
The Netherlands said on Monday it had seen 10 cases of notable potential adverse side effects from the AstraZeneca injection, hours after suspending its vaccination program following reports of potential side effects in other countries.
Recent information indicates “a very special form of thrombosis, which occurs rarely, of which some cases appear to have occurred shortly after vaccination. This is, of course, suspicious and should be investigated,” said Anke Huckriede, professor of vaccination. at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
Denmark reported “very unusual” symptoms in a 60-year-old citizen who died of a blood clot after receiving the vaccine, the same phrase used on Saturday by Norway on three people under the age of 50 who it said were being treated. in a hospital.
One of three health workers hospitalized in Norway after receiving the AstraZeneca injection had died, health authorities said Monday, but there was no evidence that the vaccine was the cause.
AstraZeneca previously said that it had conducted a review covering more than 17 million vaccinated people in the EU and UK that had shown no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots.
The long-awaited results of AstraZeneca’s 30,000-person vaccine trial in the US are now being reviewed by independent monitors to determine if the injection is safe and effective, a senior US official said Monday.
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