Italy, France and Germany on Monday suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine amid reports of people developing blood clots after receiving the shot.
The announcement to temporarily ban the vaccine follows seven reported cases of clots in the brains of vaccinated people in Germany and the latest known death of a person in Italy shortly after receiving the shot. A 57-year-old clarinet teacher, who received the vaccine in the northern Piedmont region in Italy on Saturday evening died at home early Sunday morning.
Italy’s medicines regulator Aifa said it is further looking into the matter and autopsies have been ordered for that death and other deaths that occurred in the country last week, The Associated Press reported.
In Germany, Jens Spahn, the country’s health minister, said the decision to suspend the vaccine was a “purely precautionary measure” and in line with advice offered by the national vaccine regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute.
“Additional cases have now been reported in Germany. Analysing the new data status, the experts of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut now see a striking accumulation of a special form of very rare cerebral vein thrombosis (sinus vein thrombosis) in connection with a deficiency of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia) and bleeding in temporal proximity to vaccinations with the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca,” the vaccine regulator said in a statement Monday.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that health authorities are suspending the vaccine until at least Tuesday afternoon, but didn’t elaborate on the reason for the decision.
Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Thailand, Congo and Bulgaria also have temporarily suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine as they investigate cases of blood clots that occurred after vaccination.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Monday a “very small number of people” who have received the vaccine have experienced blood clots.
“Many thousands of people develop blood clots annually in the EU for different reasons. The number of thromboembolic events overall in vaccinated people seems not to be higher than that seen in the general population,” the EMA said. “Experts are looking in great detail at all the available data and clinical circumstances surrounding specific cases to determine whether the vaccine might have contributed or if the event is likely to have been due to other causes.”
Across the EU and UK, 37 cases of blood clots have been reported so far to AstraZeneca, which said the number of incidents is similar when compared to other licensed COVID-19 vaccines.
Blood clots can form in any blood vessel and travel through the body. They can lead to serious complications by disrupting the flow of blood to important organs and potentially cause heart attacks and strokes.
In response to concerns, AstraZeneca on Sunday said a review of all available safety data on millions of people vaccinated in the European Union and UK with its coronavirus vaccine has shown no evidence of increased risk for blood clots.
“Around 17 million people in the EU and UK have now received our vaccine, and the number of cases of blood clots reported in this group is lower than the hundreds of cases that would be expected among the general population. The nature of the pandemic has led to increased attention in individual cases and we are going beyond the standard practices for safety monitoring of licensed medicines in reporting vaccine events, to ensure public safety,” said Ann Taylor, AstraZeneca’s chief medical officer.
Both the World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency have said that evidence does not suggest that the AstraZeneca vaccine causes blood clots and encouraged people to still get vaccinated.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
• Shen Wu Tan can be reached at stan@washingtontimes.com.
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