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When European drug regulators recognized a link between AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine and a rare type of blood clot, it spread another dose of skepticism across the continent. But in the poorer east, doubts are more about the findings than about the shooting.
Most Western members of the European Union announced some restrictions on the use of the vaccine for younger age groups or stopped it altogether. The opposite happened in the east, with nine of the 11 nations in the region deciding to continue administering the shot to all adults.
“We do not believe unnecessary panic,” said Bulgarian Health Minister Kostadin Angelov, listing the benefits of the drug Astra. “We’re not going to be part of this war between the different companies, because it’s already visible.”
The former Eastern Bloc is home to almost a quarter of the EU’s 440 million population fighting to domesticate the pandemic. For these countries, they dominate the top 10 list in the world Per capita coronavirus deaths: Stopping a vaccine that is key to its supply is unthinkable because they cannot afford to slow down inoculation. Germany, in comparison, the number of daily vaccines against Covid-19 has doubled, while France reached a key milestone a week earlier.
Divided continent
Europe does not present a concerted course on the side effects of the Astra vaccine
Source: Bloomberg
The world has Astra’s shot for its price and ease of use and accounts for the majority of vaccines ordered by about a third of eastern EU members. The vaccine is more easily transported and stored than Moderna Inc.’s mRNA-based vaccines. and Pfizer-BioNTech, and the Anglo-Swedish company is committed to delivering up to 3 billion shots in 2021 on a nonprofit.
Read more: AstraZeneca’s vaccine drama runs the risk of prolonging the pandemic
Hungary, which moved away from the EU – orchestrated contract program and bought vaccines directly from Russia and China, has also tried to express its support for Astra.
“The debate over the AstraZeneca vaccine should be seen as a business struggle between drug manufacturers rather than valid opinions about medical risks,” Gergely Gulyas, the minister responsible for the office of the prime minister.
A day earlier, EU and UK regulators said yes a possible link between Astra shooting and blood clots, although both said the benefits of most people outweighed the risks, as the coronavirus remains full. Britain, of whom the vaccination program is well ahead of the rest of the continent, now it is recommended to get another under 30 years old.
A health worker checks the health of a patient before administering the AstraZeneca vaccine to the mayor of the village of Gardevtsi in Bulgaria.
Photographer: Nikolay Doychinov / AFP / Getty Images
In Bulgaria, the poorest and least vaccinated nation in the EU, the most expensive vaccines were used to inoculate priority groups, such as doctors and teachers. Astra is the most accessible to the general public.
The country’s inoculation effort was already over marked by poor organization and a 37% refusal rate among its 7 million citizens to get vaccinated, according to a March survey by Exacta Research. Bulgaria will continue to apply the Astra trait to all age groups, but will offer a different blow to women at high risk of thrombosis, according to EMA recommendations, the health minister said.
Leaders in other countries have expressed their own inoculation with Astra, hoping to increase its credibility, as citizens are concerned about long blockades and a continuous series of deaths and new infections related to Astra. the coronavirus.
In Croatia, among the nations most ordered by Astra, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday that he and other leaders were being shot and stressed that “the vaccine is safe and people should be vaccinated. “.
Andrej Plenkovic receives the AstraZeneca vaccine in Zagreb on March 24.
Source: AFP / Getty Images
In Estonia, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who at 43 would be considered to be in a riskier age category for Astra’s firing in Western Europe, expressed her disappointment at her coalition partner for postponing her vaccination. The government and parliament decided last month to get Astra shots for all its members. Meanwhile, Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said it is better to take any vaccine than to risk getting the disease.
To Stjepan Oreskovic, a professor of public health at the University of Zagreb, the East-West split over Astra has exposed the EU’s weaknesses. The pandemic has also exposed how countries that joined the bloc since 2004 have done little to improve their health systems, hampered by a lack of funds and the exodus of workers to Western Europe.
“It revealed the traditional distribution of power in the EU and showed that we still have the center and the periphery,” Oreskovic said. “In other words, West and East.”
– With the assistance of Milda Seputyte, Aaron Eglitis, Dorota Bartyzel, Piotr Skolimowski, Peter Laca, Andra Timu, Marton Eder, Zoe Schneeweiss and Fergal O’Brien