The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to consider its next move after several EU nations suspended their rollouts of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
The regulator said Monday it was reviewing data on reports of blood-clotting incidents potentially related to the AstraZeneca jab. Authorities have reported one death each in Denmark and Austria related to blood-clotting in people who had received injections from one batch of a million AstraZeneca doses distributed across 17 European nations.
In Italy, prosecutors in the north of the country have opened a manslaughter investigation after the death of a man over the weekend who reportedly passed away hours after receiving a dose of the vaccine.
The EMA said it was looking at blood-clotting as well as reports of unusual features, such as low platelet numbers reported in a small number of recipients of the AstraZeneca jab, adding the rate of clotting incidents did not appear “to be higher than that seen in the general population.”...
--
Germany, France and Italy have halted rollouts of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, after a series of incidents in Europe involving blood clots.
ReplyDeleteThey join several smaller European nations who have halted vaccinations as a precaution while checks are made.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said there is no evidence that the incidents are caused by the vaccine.
It said it was reviewing reports relating to the jab, but it was important vaccinations continued.
The WHO's vaccine safety experts are meeting on Tuesday to discuss the jab.
DeleteThe European Medicines Agency (EMA) will meet on the same day and is due to draw conclusions on Thursday. It has also said the vaccine should continue to be used.
There have been a number of cases in Europe of blood clots developing after the vaccine was administered.