A German medical practitioner administers the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 3, just days before the country stops using the vaccine.
Photo:
Action Press / Zuma Press
BERLIN – Germany declares temporary cessation of Covid-19 vaccines made by AstraZeneca AZN -0.35%
PLC, the most recent of a number of predominantly European countries that have stopped shot vaccinations amid a small number of reported blood clotting cases on the continent.
The German government has said it has stopped shooting AstraZeneca on the advice of its drug agency. The country’s health minister has confirmed that there are seven cases in Germany out of 1.6 million doses that have been administered.
Denmark last week said it had interrupted AstraZeneca photos for two weeks following reports of blood clotting, and several other European countries quickly followed suit, saying they were doing so out of prudence. Norway, Ireland and the Netherlands are among the countries that have stopped vaccinating with AstraZeneca’s shot.
More about the AstraZeneca Vaccine
Health regulators in the UK and Europe, along with AstraZeneca and its vaccine development partners at Oxford University, say there is no known link between severe coagulation and stroke. AstraZeneca said the number of cases of blood clotting among the approximately 17 million people in the European Union and the United Kingdom who received the vaccine is lower than for the general population.
The European Medicines Authority said last week that it was examining about 30 reported cases of severe coagulation, out of about five million people who received the shot as a whole. Last week, the regulator, the European Medicines Agency, said the “benefits of the vaccine now outweigh the risks” and further recommended its use. The agency said most side effects are mild or moderate. Clinical trials have not raised flags about blood clotting as a risk.
Write to Bojan Pancevski at [email protected] and Jenny Strasburg at [email protected]
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