At least three European Union countries are suspending AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, even after the block’s drug regulator said it was safe to use.
Denmark, Norway and Sweden said they would wait until next week to decide whether to resume the start of the shot after several people who received it had blood clots.
They included more than a dozen EU countries suspending AstraZeneca vaccinations, while the European Medicines Agency investigated the blood clots, some of which were fatal.
The agency concluded on Thursday that the British drugmaker’s vaccine did not increase the overall risk of blood clots, leading to several countries – including Italy, France and Germany – announcing that they would take it off the shelf.
But the three Scandinavian countries were more cautious and said they wanted to complete their own national assessments.
Health officials in Denmark have said they will not decide whether to continue rolling out AstraZeneca after the end of the two-week hiatus. The country announced the suspension last week after a 60-year-old vaccinated woman developed “highly unusual symptoms” before dying from a blood clot.
“It is important that we, together with the EMA and the other drug regulatory authorities, take the time to thoroughly evaluate these types of reports,” Tanja Erichsen, acting director of the Danish Medicines Agency’s drug agency, said in a statement on Thursday. .
Both Norway and Sweden have said they will take the EMA’s conclusions into account when considering whether to start AstraZeneca vaccinations again.
Officials noted the severity of some cases of blood clots. However, the EMA said it was rare – only on Tuesday, 25 cases of blood clots were reported from about 20 million Europeans who received the shot.
“Due to the situation with several serious cases in Norway, we want to thoroughly investigate the situation before we draw a conclusion,” said Geir Bukholm, director of the infection control department at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
The three countries differ from their northern neighbor, Finland, which has never stopped using AstraZeneca’s vaccine. Like the World Health Organization and AstraZeneca itself, health officials there have noted that there is no evidence that the shot increases the risk of blood clots.
U.S.-listed AstraZeneca shares rose about 0.6 percent in the pre-trading session on Friday at $ 49.64 at 7:40 p.m.