Danish health authorities say they will hold off for now on resuming use of the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19, despite an all-clear from the European medical regulator EMA.
“Our decision to put vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca on hold until week 12 (March 22-28) remains in effect,” the head of the Danish Health Authority, Soren Brostrom, said in a statement late Thursday.
“In the coming days, the Danish Health Authority and the Danish Medicines Agency will assess the impact of EMA’s review of the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca on the Danish vaccination programme,” he added.
Last week, Denmark was the first country to suspend use of the AstraZeneca jab, a decision then followed by more than a dozen other mostly European countries.
The Health Authority, which was to hold a press conference later Friday, noted that even though the EMA emphasised the benefits of the vaccine and called it “safe and effective,” the Amsterdam-based agency had said it “cannot rule out that there is a link between the few known cases of rare but severe blood clots and vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca.”
The Scandinavian country is currently investigating 10 cases, including one fatality, where blood clots or blood clot symptoms arose after more than 140,000 people received the jab made by the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker.
Sweden, Norway and Iceland have all suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine due to the risk of blood clots.
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