The first suspensions in the Nordic countries
Before Germany, Denmark (which recorded 10 cases, one of which was lethal), Norway and Iceland had moved with the precautionary suspension for similar reasons. On the other hand, the United Kingdom and Belgium, which continued to administer the vaccine, considering it safe and effective. In the United Kingdom alone, over 10 million people have already received it and cases of serious adverse reactions have been very rare and in any case in line with those of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The precautionary stop in Italy
In Italy, Aifa suspended vaccinations after the German stop and following isolated cases of blood clots and deaths. However, a link with the vaccine has not yet emerged from the first autopsies. At the same Public Prosecutor of Catania, which is investigating in this regard due to territorial jurisdiction, “there are no elements that allow us to hypothesize that the events on which it is investigating are symptomatic of a danger in the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and not even of some of its lots, by the generality of the subjects towards whom such use is permitted “. Prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro states this in a note.
“In several countries we need to maintain confidence in Covid vaccines and, if lost, to rebuild it, especially for AstraZeneca.” This was underlined by Hans Kluge, regional director of the World Health Organization for Europe.
GB ahead with AstraZeneca, no evidence of links with thrombosis
The UK Medicines Agency (MHRA) for its part formally excludes that there is any evidence of a link between the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine and individual cases of blood clots diagnosed in some people after administration, and therefore recommends that continue to inoculate this serum: never discontinued in the UK and already received by millions of individuals. The British authority is conducting further investigations on 5 individual cases of more specific and severe thrombosis reported in the Kingdom among people undergoing Covid vaccinations. This was stated by Phil Bryan, head of vaccination safety at MHRA, after the general reassurance on AstraZeneca and Pfizer and the indication to continue with the vaccines. Bryan explained that the 5 specific cases, “similar” to others recorded in Norway and Germany and “very rare in nature”, are still being studied “to gather more information and determine” with certainty if they were not “caused by the vaccine. “. “At the moment there is no evidence of a causal relationship” with the AstraZeneca vaccine not even “with regard to these cases”, which remain “a medical event that is still extremely rare”, Bryan then pointed out.