The suspensions follow reports that some people developed blood clots after receiving the shot, but the WHO says there is no proven link and urges people not to panic.
Germany, France, Italy and Spain have suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine after several reports of blood clots in people who were shot in Europe.
Monday’s influx of suspensions came after a number of other countries, especially in Europe, stopped launching late last week.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has supported the use of the vaccine and said it has seen no evidence that the shot caused coagulation in some people who received it.
The UN health agency is examining reports of the shootings and has urged countries not to suspend vaccinations because the top scientist has said people should not panic.
EU members stop firing
German Health Minister Jens Spahn said the country had suspended the use of the shot on the advice of the national vaccine regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute.
The institute called for further investigations into seven reported cases of clots in the brains of people who received this vaccination.
“Today’s decision is a purely preventive measure,” Spahn said.
France and Italy announced similar moves shortly thereafter.
French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the use of AstraZeneca will be suspended as a precautionary measure until at least Tuesday afternoon, when the European Union’s Medicines Regulatory Authority (EMA) will issue its recommendation on the vaccine.
Macron did not explain the reasoning behind the decision, but said in a press conference that he hopes France will be able to vaccinate AstraZeneca again with gunfire “soon”.
Meanwhile, the Italian medicines authority, AIFA, said it was implementing its own suspension as a “precautionary and temporary measure” pending EMA decisions.
The announcement followed the confiscation of hundreds of thousands of doses of vaccine by Italian prosecutors in the northern region of Piedmont, where a teacher died as a result of his vaccination.
Experts are investigating whether there is a link between his death and vaccination.
Late Monday, Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darias said the country had suspended the vaccine for two weeks as a “precautionary measure”.
She said the decision would remain in place until the EMA “analyzes the recent incidence of blood clots, especially on weekends.”
AstraZeneca said there was no cause for concern with its vaccine, which is co-produced with Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and that fewer cases of thrombosis were reported in those who received the shot than in the general population.
Peter Drobac of Oxford University told Al Jazeera that the AstraZeneca vaccine had undergone “rigorous clinical trials” and that blood clots had not been identified as a problem.
“The safety break, I think, is definitely the prerogative of the regulators in these countries. However, I have heard from the World Health Organization, the European Medicines Agency and others that at this time the benefits of vaccination clearly outweigh the risks, ”said Drobac.
WHO urges calm
The EMA and the WHO also said that the available data did not suggest that the vaccine had caused clots and that people should continue to be immunized with the shot.
The WHO on Monday called on countries not to suspend vaccinations against a disease that has caused more than 2.7 million deaths worldwide. The most important scientist of the UN health agency reiterated that no deaths related to COVID-19 vaccines have been documented.
“We do not want people to panic,” said Soumya Swaminathan, adding that there has been no association so far identified between so-called “thromboembolic events” reported in some countries and COVID-19 shootings.
Insurance seems to have done little to allay doubts, however, several countries have temporarily stopped using the AstraZeneca vaccine in recent days.
Denmark, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland and Bulgaria were among those that suspended the use of the shooting.