Ireland on Sunday suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine as a precautionary measure for blood clots.
“The decision to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine was based on new information from Norway that appeared late last night. This is a preventative step,” said Health Minister Stephen Donnelly. tweeted.
Ronan Glynn, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, said experts recommend the suspension “following a report by the Norwegian Medicines Agency on four new reports of serious blood clotting events in adults following vaccination with Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca.”
But Glynn also warned that “it has not been concluded” that there is any link between the clotting incidents and the Astra-Zeneca sample, which Ireland began administering in early February.
The decision makes Ireland the latest in a series of European countries to announce partial or temporary suspensions of jab vaccination amid blood clots. It also comes just a day after the Irish authorities recommended that the use of the AstraZenca vaccine be extended to cover people over 70.
Last week, Austria said the use of a specific group of vaccines would be suspended after one person died and another became ill with blood clotting conditions after vaccination. The group in question was delivered to a total of 17 European countries, including Ireland.
Bulgaria announced on Friday that vaccination with the AstraZeneca jab would be stopped altogether, citing “the occurrence of inadmissible side effects with the correct use of the vaccine.”
A spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that a causal link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the coagulation incidents “had not been shown.”
The spokesperson said the WHO’s immunization expert group, SAGE, is reviewing the recent reports and will make its findings public as soon as they are available.