THE HAGUE, March 17, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The EU’s medicines regulator said
Tuesday it was “firmly convinced” the benefits of AstraZeneca’s vaccine
outweigh potential risks, insisting there was no evidence linking it to blood
clots after several nations suspended the shot over health fears.
The suspensions have provoked intense debate over whether it was prudent to
put AstraZeneca inoculations on hold just as vaccination campaigns were
beginning to gather pace.
Experts at both the World Health Organization and the European Medicines
Agency (EMA) met Tuesday to discuss the vaccine, with the European
organisation expected to publish conclusions Thursday.
While millions of doses of the vaccine developed with Oxford University
have been administered, small numbers of people have developed blood clots,
prompting countries including the EU’s three largest nations — Germany,
France and Italy — to suspend injections.
The EMA insisted that countries should continue using the vaccine. “We are
still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in
preventing Covid-19 with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death
outweigh the risk of these side effects,” EMA chief Emer Cooke said Tuesday.
Cooke noted however that the regulator was “looking at adverse events
associated with all vaccines”.
France and Italy welcomed the news.
The preliminary statements from the EMA “are encouraging,” read a joint
statement from French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister
Mario Draghi.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex vowed he would be vaccinated “very
quickly” with the AstraZeneca vaccine to give the public confidence in the
jab if it is ruled as safe by the EU medicines agency.
Castex also said that new restrictions could be put in place for the Paris
region, such as the weekend lockdowns already imposed in the Nice and Calais
regions.
“We are in a worrying and critical situation and, clearly, measures of the
type that have been used in other parts of the territory are on the table,”
he told BFM TV in a live interview.
– Covid, not jab, to blame? –
In Britain, which has administered more than 11 million AstraZeneca doses,
experts see no evidence of more frequent blood clots among the inoculated.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote in The Times newspaper that the shot “is
safe and works extremely well”.
One British scientist argues that Covid-19 itself — and not the vaccine —
could be to blame, as it was known to cause such problems.
The “very likely explanation of at least some of the clotting disorders
seen are a result of Covid-19 rather than the vaccine”, said Stephen Evans,
professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical
Medicine.
“Hence, even if there were a problem, acknowledged to be very rare with the
AZ vaccine, the overall benefit would be so much greater than any speculative
harm,” he added.
Coronavirus deaths across Europe meanwhile passed the 900,000 mark, making
it the worst-hit global region in absolute terms, according to an AFP tally.
In the world’s hardest-hit country, the United States, former president
Donald Trump encouraged his Republican supporters — one of the main groups
resistant to Covid-19 vaccines — to get their shots.
“I would recommend it,” Trump said in a late Tuesday interview on Fox News.
This was Trump’s most explicit endorsement for the national mass
vaccination campaign since he left office in January.
Meanwhile in Brazil the Covid-19 death toll broke another record: 2,841
people died in a 24 hours, authorities said Tuesday.
Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro appointed his fourth health minister
since the pandemic began, has the world’s second highest Covid-19 infection
rate after the United States.
– ‘I’m an example’ –
More than 382 million doses of vaccine have been administered globally, the
vast majority in wealthier countries while many poorer nations have yet to
receive a single jab.
AstraZeneca’s shot, among the cheapest available, was billed as the vaccine
of choice for poorer nations and the clot reports have had an impact beyond
Europe.
Countries that have halted or delayed the rollout range from Indonesia and
Venezuela to Sweden and the Netherlands. But Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau urged his citizens to get the AstraZeneca shot. A scientific
committee advising the government even extended its recommendation for
AstraZeneca’s jab to people aged 65 and over.
And Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha was himself injected as his
country lifted its own AstraZeneca suspension.
“I am an example today,” he said.
The pandemic spurred unprecedented efforts to develop vaccines, with a
number of successful options now available.
On Tuesday Brussels sealed a deal to step up deliveries of 10 million doses
of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, now scheduled to arrive in the EU before July
rather than in the third quarter.
And a new agreement for Germany’s IDT Biologika to help produce the single-
shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine would offer Europe greater certainty,
Germany’s economy minister said.