DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland became the last country to stop using AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday, and temporarily suspended the shooting “as a precaution” following reports from Norway of blood clotting. severe blood in some receptors.
Three Norwegian health workers who had recently received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were treated at the hospital for bleeding, blood clots and a low number of blood platelets, health officials said on Saturday.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NIAC) in Ireland recommended the temporary postponement pending further information from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the coming days.
AstraZeneca said on Sunday it had conducted a review of more than 17 million people vaccinated in the European Union and the UK that had shown no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots.
Denmark, Norway and Iceland have suspended the use of the vaccine due to clotting problems, while Thailand became the first country outside Europe to do so on Friday and delayed the launch of AstraZeneca due to safety concerns in Europe.
The northern Italian region of Piedmont on Sunday said it would stop using a batch of AstraZeneca vaccines after a teacher died on Saturday after his vaccination. Austria also stopped using a specific batch last week.
The EMA said on Friday that there were no indications that the events were caused by vaccination, an opinion echoed by the World Health Organization.
“WE MAY BE OVERACTIVATING”
Irish authorities received some clotting reports similar to those seen in Europe last week, but nothing as serious as the cases in Norway, Deputy Director-General Ronan Glynn said.
Glynn said the fact that Norwegian cases related to a cluster of four unusual coagulation events involving the brain in children aged 30 to 40 increased the level of concern.
He said one of the reasons Ireland acted now was that the AstraZeneca vaccine should be given to people of a similar age with severe underlying conditions next week.
“Maybe it’s nothing, maybe we’ll be overreacting and I sincerely hope that within a week we’ll have been accused of being too cautious,” Glynn told national broadcaster RTE.
“We hope to have data that will reassure us in a few days and we will work with that again.”
AstraZeneca vaccines account for 20% of the 590,000 shots administered among the Irish population of 4.9 million, mainly to health workers after their use was initially not recommended for people over 70 and the company supplied the EU with many fewer vaccines than agreed.
There have been 4,534 COVID-19-related deaths in Ireland. The number of cases per 100,000 people in the last 14 days fell to 151 from a high of more than 1,500 in January, although officials are concerned about a slight increase in new cases in recent days.
Northern Ireland Deputy Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill also expressed concern about AstraZeneca’s suspension elsewhere. In response to Ireland’s decision, the UK drug regulator said that while reviewing the reports closely, available evidence does not suggest that the vaccine is the cause of the clots.
Like the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland is well ahead in its program and has inoculated more than 40% of the adult population, relying heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Report by Padraic Halpin, edited by Bernadette Baum, Louise Heavens and Jane Merriman