Oxford-AstraZeneca covid vaccine.
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LONDON – Denmark announced on Thursday that it will temporarily suspend the use of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
The Danish health authority said it would temporarily stop using the shot in its vaccination program as a precautionary measure “following reports of severe cases of blood clots in people who have been vaccinated with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine.”
“In this context, the European Medicines Agency has launched an investigation into the AstraZeneca vaccine. A report refers to a death in Denmark. At present, it cannot be concluded whether there is a link between the vaccine and blood clots,” the authority said in a statement. -a declaration.
He did not specify how many reports of blood clots existed or where they came from.
The announcement comes after a similar move in Austria earlier this week, where authorities are investigating the death of one person and the disease of another after receiving vaccine doses.
Shares of AstraZeneca on the London market fell 2.4% on Thursday morning. Oxford University did not comment on this announcement when contacted by CNBC.
An AstraZeneca spokesman said the company was aware of a statement by the Danish Health Authority that it was currently investigating potential vaccine-related side effects.
“Patient safety is the highest priority for AstraZeneca. Regulators have clear and strict safety and efficacy standards for the approval of any new medicinal product and this includes the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine. The safety of the vaccine has been extensively studied in phase III clinical trials. And peer-reviewed data confirms that the vaccine is generally well tolerated, “AstraZeneca said in a statement to CNBC.
Søren Brostrøm, Director of the National Health Council of Denmark, inSsaid the 14-day suspension was a precautionary measure while investigations were underway.
“It is important to emphasize that we have not given up the AstraZeneca vaccine, but that we are putting it on hold. There is good evidence that the vaccine is both safe and effective. But both we and the Danish Medicines Agency need to react to reports of possible serious side effects, both in Denmark and in other European countries, “he said.
Concerns in Austria
Austrian health authorities have suspended the use of the ABV5300 batch of AstraZeneca vaccine after one person was diagnosed with multiple thrombosis (the formation of blood clots in the blood vessels) and died 10 days after vaccination and another person was hospitalized with an embolism lung after being vaccinated.
“The latter is now recovering,” the European Medicines Agency said on Wednesday.
However, the EMA added that “there is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects of this vaccine”.
The EMA mentioned that the same batch ABV5300 was delivered to 17 EU countries and contains 1 million doses of vaccine.
“Some EU countries have subsequently suspended this batch as a precautionary measure, while a full investigation is underway. Although a quality defect is considered unlikely at this stage, the quality of the batch is being investigated,” the EMA said.
He added that his safety committee had examined the issue and “investigated cases reported with the batch, as well as all other cases of thromboembolic events and other blood clot disorders, reported after vaccination.”
The information available so far indicates that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated individuals is not higher than that observed in the general population.
As of March 9, “22 cases of thromboembolic events have been reported among the 3 million people vaccinated with the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area,” the EMA said.
Dependence in the UK and the EU
Late clinical trials have found that AstraZeneca-Oxford shot has an average effectiveness of 70% in protecting against the virus. A more recent study by Oxford researchers found that the Covid vaccine was 76% effective in preventing symptomatic infection for three months after a single dose and that the rate of effectiveness actually increased with a longer interval between the first and second dose. the second dose.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine relies heavily on immunization launches in the UK and the European Union.
The UK has so far vaccinated over 22 million people with a first dose of coronavirus vaccine and currently uses only AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech shots.