The Netherlands has joined a growing list of countries suspending the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine following reports of possible side effects after vaccination.
The Dutch government said on Sunday it would suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for two weeks, “as a precautionary measure and pending further investigation.”
The decision comes a few days after Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said there was no cause for concern and that vaccinations could continue. The Dutch Ministry of Health said in a statement on Sunday that its Council on Medicine Evaluation (CBG) had received “new information” this past weekend.
The statement said that no ‘causal link’ had been established between the vaccine and the recently reported side effects from Denmark and Norway, but that it would suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine until March 29.
‘The CBG indicates that a total of six new reports on possible side effects have been received from Denmark and Norway. “These are serious, rare signs of thrombosis (thrombosis) and a reduced platelet count (thrombocytopenia) in adults under 50,” the statement said, adding that no such cases had occurred in the Netherlands.
“The important question is whether it is about complaints after vaccination, or caused by vaccination,” De Jonge said in the statement. “There can be no doubt about the vaccines.”
AstraZeneca strongly defended its vaccine, saying in a statement Sunday that there were no confirmed quality issues for any group of the drug, and “no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or thrombocytopenia” for people who it receives.
Some contexts: The Netherlands is the latest European country to partially or completely suspend its deployment of the AstraZeneca vaccine following reports of patients developing blood clots following vaccinations.
- Austria was the first to sound the alarm about the possible dangers of the vaccine, and last Tuesday suspended one group of doses.
- Italy banned the use of vaccines from a specific amount of AstraZeneca doses last Friday, after a man in Sicily died one day after a heart attack after receiving his first dose of the vaccine.
- Denmark became the first European country to temporarily suspend the entire deployment of the AstraZeneca vaccine last Thursday, followed by Iceland, Norway and Ireland.
The European Union’s medical regulator, the EMA, is currently investigating whether the shot can be linked to a number of reports of blood clots.