Finland suspends use of AstraZeneca vaccine over blood clot concerns

It comes as other European countries restart the rollout of the vaccine
AP
Luke O'Reilly19 March 2021

Finland has suspended the use of AstraZeneca Covid-19vaccine while it investigates two possible cases of blood clots.

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare estimated on Friday that the investigation would take at least one week.

It comes as countries including France, Germany and Italy re-start their vaccine programmes with the AstraZeneca jab – reversing an earlier decision to suspend it over similar blood clot concerns.

The World Health Organisation and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have said that the jab is safe and have encouraged people to take up their vaccine appointments.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said the AstraZeneca vaccine was “safe and effective” and its benefits in preventing Covid-19 hospital admission and death greatly outweighed potential risks.

The EMA was unable to say definitively that the jab is not linked to “extremely rare” blood clots on the brain, of which there have been 18 reports among millions of people vaccinated.

But Emer Cooke, EMA executive director, said this situation was not unexpected, adding that “when you vaccinate millions of people” such reports of rare events will occur.

The EMA has concluded there is no overall increase in the risk of blood clots with the vaccine, and in fact it is likely to reduce the overall risk of clots.

Ms Cooke, who said she would personally take the vaccine, told a press briefing: “The committee has come to a clear scientific conclusion.

“This is a safe and effective vaccine. Its benefits in protecting people from Covid-19, with the associated risks of death and hospitalisation, outweigh the possible risks.

“The committee also concluded that the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of thromboembolic events, or blood clots.”

Finland has suspended the use of the vaccine
AP

Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, said the decision to pause use of the Oxford jab in some European countries was likely to “translate into many, many lives lost due to Covid”.

He told Times Radio that the delay and the “uncertainty” caused by the move will increase the number of coronavirus deaths by “thousands”.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he welcomed the “growing number of European countries restarting the use of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine”.

“The vaccine is safe, effective and saving lives,” he tweeted.

Ann Taylor, AstraZeneca’s chief medical officer, said she hoped vaccinations could resume “across Europe” following the conclusions of the EMA and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in