WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Countries across Europe resumed vaccinations with the AstraZeneca shot on Friday as leaders sought to reassure their population.
The British and French prime ministers have rolled up their sleeves, as have a handful of other senior politicians across the continent, where vaccinations have stumbled repeatedly and are now re-closing in several countries as infections increase in many places.
Britain is a notable exception: the outbreak there has been withdrawn, and the country has been widely praised for its vaccination campaign, although it announced this week that it will also be hit by the shortage of supplies.. The UK has also never stopped using AstraZeneca. By contrast, European Union countries have struggled to export vaccines quickly, and the disruption of the vaccine by many this week has only contributed to the problems.
The suspensions come after reports of blood clots in some recipients of the vaccine, although international health agencies have urged governments to continue with the shot, saying the benefits outweigh the risks. The European Medicines Agency said on Thursday that the vaccine does not increase the overall incidence of blood clots., although it can not exclude a link to a small number of rare blood clots.
The move paved the way for a number of European countries, including Italy, France and Germany, to start using the vaccine again.
“It is clear that the withdrawal of the suspension is a great relief for us because we need to accelerate the vaccination campaign quickly,” said Dr. Giovanni Rezza, head of prevention at the Italian Ministry of Health, said.
Rezza told reporters in Rome that Italy had only reluctantly stopped the campaign out of an abundance of caution, but that it had to recover quickly to make up for lost time.
He said Italy should more than double the 200,000 vaccinations a day it reached before the suspension to reach its target of vaccinating 80% of the population by September.
Health experts have expressed concern that although the suspensions were short, they could still damage confidence in the vaccine at a time when many people are already reluctant to take a chance that has developed so quickly. Although many EU countries have struggled with such reluctance, it is a concern in developing countries who may have no other choice of vaccine. AstraZeneca, which is cheaper and easier to store than many competing products, is the key to vaccinations in much poorer countries.
Amid these concerns, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is getting an AstraZeneca stab in the St. Thomas Hospital in south London, where he was treated in intensive care for COVID-19 last year.
“I literally felt nothing and so it was very good, very fast and I can not recommend it too strongly,” Johnson, 56, said after leaving the hospital after his jab. ‘Everyone, go get it if you’ve been notified. This is the best thing for you, the best for your family and for everyone else. ”
Others who got the chance on Friday included French Prime Minister Jean Castex, Slovenian President Borut Pahor and Prime Minister Janez Jansa, and a German governor.
Castex, 55, said he acted because he wanted to show full confidence in the shot, although he was not yet eligible under French rules. Former director of the Pasteur Institute, Patrick Berche, told BFMTV the move was a very nice gesture. ‘
France restarted the vaccine with some restrictions aimed at further reducing the risk of possible side effects.
Other countries resuming use of AstraZeneca surveys include Bulgaria, a country of 7 million where only 355,000 people have been vaccinated with a first dose so far – the lowest number in the European Union.
But not everyone returned to the vaccine so quickly. Sweden, Norway and Denmark, which were the first countries to suspend the use of AstraZeneca, said they would wait another week before deciding whether to start again. And Finland has decided to suspend the vaccine for the first time on Friday, saying it will suspend use for a week while investigating two suspected cases of blood clots.
Although there are concerns that the break could cause long-term doubt, some are relieved that the vaccine was available again on Friday.
Marvin Brandl, 28, an emergency paramedic, was among a group of health workers who received a shot in the German city of Cologne. He expressed confidence in all EU-approved vaccines.
“Last night when I found out that vaccination is possible again, I immediately made the appointment and then I was satisfied and grateful that I could get vaccinated,” Brandl said.
Authorities in Berlin said two major vaccination centers were reopening on Friday and that people whose appointments had been canceled this week could get the vaccine over the weekend without making a new vaccination.
After several obstacles in the explosion of vaccines, EU governments are eager to get shots fired again, especially as infections and hospitalizations increase dramatically in many countries, with many officials saying they are in a ‘third wave’.
Infection rates in Germany are ‘now clearly exponential’, said Lars Schaade, deputy head of the Robert Koch Institute. Officials have warned that the country could return to tougher closure measures by Easter.
In France, the government opposed ordering a difficult exclusion for Paris and several other regions, but rather announced a patchwork of new restrictions despite an increasingly worrying situation in hospitals with an increase in the number of COVID-19 patients.
In Poland, there is more than ever a respirator used since the onset of the pandemic, and a greater percentage of those admitted to hospital are children. Officials blame the rise of a more transmissible mutation that was first identified in Britain and spread like wildfire across the country, and they say the worst is yet to come. The central European country is preparing to enter a new nationwide exclusion on Saturday – albeit less restrictively than a year ago.
Hungary has meanwhile extended restrictions for another week as a powerful boom breaks records every day – despite the country having the second highest vaccination rate in the EU after Malta.
In Bosnia, which is not in the EU, the rising infections on Friday led to a lockdown in the capital. The 3.3 million Balkan nation has yet to begin mass vaccination of its citizens and has kept relaxed measures and ski resorts open during the winter season.
___
Associated Press writers from across Europe contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus- vaccination and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak