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When European drug regulators recognized a link between AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine and a rare type of blood clot, it spread another dose of skepticism across the continent. But in the poorer east, the doubts are more about the findings than about the shooting.
Most western members of the European Union have announced some restrictions on the use of the vaccine for younger age groups or stopped it altogether. The opposite happened in the east, with nine of the 11 nations in the region deciding to continue administering the shooting of all adults.
“Let’s not create unnecessary panic,” Bulgarian Health Minister Kostadin Angelov said, listing the benefits of Astra. “Let’s not become part of the war between the different companies, because it’s already visible.”
The former Eastern Bloc is home to almost a quarter of the EU’s population of 440 million and is struggling to tame the pandemic. For these countries – which dominates the top 10 list in the world coronavirus deaths per capita – reducing a vaccine essential for their supply is inconceivable because they can not afford to slow down inoculation. Germany, by comparison, it doubled the number of Covid-19 daily vaccinations, while France reached a key moment a week earlier.
Divided continent
Europe is failing to establish a concerted course on the side effects of the Astra vaccine
Source: Bloomberg
The world is based on the Astra shot due to its price and ease of use and accounts for the majority of vaccines ordered by about a third of eastern EU members. The vaccine is easier to transport and store than mRNA vaccines from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer-BioNTech, and the Anglo-Swedish company has promised to deliver up to 3 billion photos in 2021, non-profit.
Read more: The drama of the AstraZeneca Vaccine risks prolonging the pandemic
Hungary, which has deviated from the procurement program orchestrated by the EU and bought vaccines directly from Russia and China and tried to express support for Astra.
“The debate over the AstraZeneca vaccine should be seen as a business struggle between drug manufacturers, rather than valid views on medical risks,” Gergely Gulyas, the minister in charge of the prime minister’s office, said on April 8.
A day earlier, EU and UK regulators said it existed a possible link between the Astra shot and blood clots, although both said the risks to most people were far outweighed by the benefits, as the coronavirus remains abundant. Great Britain, whose the vaccination program is well ahead of the rest of the continent, recommending under 30 years to get a different one.
A health worker checks a patient’s health before administering the AstraZeneca vaccine at the town hall in the village of Gardevtsi, Bulgaria.
Photographer: Nikolay Doychinov / AFP / Getty Images
In Bulgaria, the poorest and least vaccinated nation in the EU, more expensive vaccines have been used to inoculate priority groups such as doctors and teachers. Astra is the most available to the general public.
The country’s inoculation effort has already been made affected by a weak organization and a 37% refusal rate of 7 million citizens to get vaccinated, according to a March survey by Exacta Research. Bulgaria will continue to apply the Astra shot to all age groups, but will give a different blow to women at high risk of thrombosis, according to EMA recommendations, the health minister said.
Leaders elsewhere have spoken out about their own inoculation with Astra, hoping to increase its credibility as citizens become uneasy over long blockages and a string of coronavirus-related deaths and new infections.
In Croatia, among the nations that commanded mainly Astra, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday that he and other leaders had been given the shot, stressing that “the vaccine is safe and people should be vaccinated.”
Andrej Plenkovic receives the AstraZeneca vaccine in Zagreb on March 24.
Source: AFP / Getty Images
In Estonia, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who at the age of 43 is considered to be in a more risky age group for Astra shots in Western Europe, expressed disappointment with his coalition partner for postponing his vaccination. The government and parliament decided last month to receive Astra shots for all its members. Meanwhile, Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said this week that it is better to get any vaccine than to risk getting the disease.
to Stjepan Oreskovic, professor of public health at the University of Zagreb, the separation between East and West of Astra exposed the EU’s fragility. The pandemic also revealed how countries that have joined the bloc since 2004 have not done much to update them. health care systems, affected by lack of funds and the exodus of workers to Western Europe.
“It revealed the traditional distribution of power in the EU and showed that we still have the center and the periphery,” Oreskovic said. “In other words, the West and the East.”
– With the assistance of Milda Seputyte, Aaron Eglitis, Dorota Bartyzel, Piotr Skolimowski, Peter Laca, Andra Timu, Marton Eder, Zoe Schneeweiss and Fergal O’Brien