Ireland on Sunday suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine as a precautionary measure due to concerns about blood clots.
“The decision to temporarily suspend the use of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine was based on new information from Norway that emerged late at night. This is a precautionary step,” said the Minister of Hi, Stephen Donnelly. he tweeted.
Ronan Glynn, the deputy medical director, dit the experts recommended the suspension “following a report from the Norwegian Medicines Agency of four new reports of serious blood clotting events in adults after vaccination with the Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine.”
But Glynn also warned that “it had not been concluded” that there was any link between the coagulation incidents and the Astra-Zeneca jab, which Ireland began administering in early February.
The decision makes Ireland the last in a series of European countries to announce partial or temporary suspensions of vaccination with the punch amid concerns about blood clotting. It also comes a day after Irish authorities recommended that the use of the AstraZenca vaccine be extended to cover people over the age of 70.
Last week, Austria said it was suspending the use of a specific batch of vaccines after one person died and another fell ill with blood clotting conditions after vaccination. The batch in question was delivered to a total of 17 European countries, including Ireland.
On Friday, Bulgaria announced it would completely stop inoculations with the AstraZeneca prick, citing “the appearance of inadmissible side effects with the correct use of the vaccine.”
On Friday, a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman said “no causal relationship has been demonstrated between the AstraZeneca vaccine and coagulation incidents.”
The spokesman said the WHO group of immunization experts, SAGE, was evaluating recent reports and would make their results public as soon as they were available.