At least three EU countries are keeping the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine pending for the time being, even after the bloc’s drug regulator said it was safe to use.
Denmark, Norway and Sweden have said they will wait until next week to decide whether to resume firing the shot after several people who received it have developed blood clots.
More than a dozen EU countries have suspended vaccinations against AstraZeneca while the European Medicines Agency has investigated cases of blood clots, some of which have been fatal.
The agency concluded on Thursday that the British drug vaccine does not increase the overall risk of blood clots, prompting several countries – including Italy, France and Germany – to announce that they will take it off the shelf.
But the three Scandinavian countries have been more cautious, saying they want to complete their own national reviews.
Health officials in Denmark have said they will not decide whether to continue launching AstraZeneca until after the end of the two-week break. The country announced the suspension last week after a 60-year-old vaccinated woman developed “extremely unusual symptoms” before dying from a blood clot.
“It is important that together with the EMA and other drug regulators we take the time to carefully evaluate this type of report,” Tanja Erichsen, director of pharmacovigilance at the Danish Medicines Agency, said in a statement on Thursday.
Both Norway and Sweden have said they will consider the EMA’s findings as they consider whether to resume vaccinations against AstraZeneca.
Officials noted the severity of some cases of blood clots. The EMA, however, said they were rare – only 25 cases of blood clots were reported on Tuesday out of about 20 million Europeans who were shot.
“Due to the situation with several serious cases in Norway, we want to thoroughly analyze the situation before reaching a conclusion,” said Geir Bukholm, director of the Infection Control Division at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
The three countries differed from their northern neighbor, Finland, which has never stopped using the AstraZeneca vaccine. Like the World Health Organization and AstraZeneca itself, health officials have noted that there is no evidence that the shooting would increase the risk of blood clots.
AstraZeneca’s U.S.-listed shares rose about 0.6 percent in premarket trading on Friday to $ 49.64 starting at 7:40 p.m.