COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Denmark became the first country to stop using AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday because of a potential link to a rare but serious form of blood clot.
The decision will delay the planned completion of Denmark’s vaccination plan in early August from July 25, health authorities said.
But this new timeline means it will start using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the launch of which in Europe has been delayed due to similar clotting concerns and the use that Denmark has suspended. This feature represents approximately one-third of the country’s total contracted supply.
The results of investigations into blood clots associated with AstraZeneca “showed real and serious side effects,” the head of the Danish health agency, Soren Brostrom, said in a news release.
“Therefore, we have chosen to continue the vaccination program for all target groups without this vaccine.”
Astrazeneca said he respected Denmark’s choice and would continue to provide data to inform him of future decisions.
“The implementation and deployment of the vaccine program is a matter for each country to decide, depending on local conditions,” the Anglo-Swedish company said.
The European Union drug watchdog said last week that he had found a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), a cerebral blood clot.
He said the risk of dying from COVID-19 was much higher than the risk of mortality from rare side effects, but left it up to the states to make their own risk assessments and decide how to administer the vaccine.
Many countries in Europe and other countries have resumed the use of the shot, and some restrict it to certain age groups, mainly those over 50 or over 60 years.
Brostrom said joint studies based on Danish and Norwegian health data estimated that one in 40,000 people vaccinated with AstraZeneca shot could expect to experience this serious complication, with nothing conclusive regarding age or gender.
He said Denmark had come a long way in inoculating the elderly population with the highest risk of contracting a severe form of the virus.
Future vaccination target groups were at lower risk. “This has to be weighed against the fact that we now have a known risk of serious adverse effects … with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, although the risk in absolute numbers is small.”
Therefore, Denmark’s decision should be seen only in a Danish context and “I understand very well why other countries will use it,” he said.
Denmark was the first country to initially suspend all use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in March for safety reasons.
Nearly one million of the country’s population has received the first 5.8 million people, 77% against the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 7.8% Modern and 15.3% AstraZeneca.
Denmark is in the process of easing restrictions after the daily COVID-19 infection rate dropped to 500-600 from several thousand in December.
Reports by Nikolaj Skydsgaard and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Toby Chopra and John Stonestreet