Following confidence building statements and measures announced by medicine regulators of the European Union and the United Kingdom about the benefits outweighing the risks of the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca, a number of EU countries including Germany and France have announced their plans to resume using the vaccine.
More than a dozen nations in EU and elsewhere had suspended the use of the vaccine following reports of rare brain blood clots in people after being administered the shot. This is the latest challenge for AstraZeneca in its efforts to make a “vaccine for the world” with the death toll from Cvoid-19 surpassing the 2.8 million mark globally.
The “clear’ conclusion by the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) about the AstraZeneca vaccine was that the benefits of the vaccine in protecting people from coronavirus related death or hospitalisation was much more than the possible risks - a conclusion that was reached after an investigation into 30 cases of unusual blood disorders. The EMA however did not definitively rule out a possible link between blood clots in the brain and the vaccine shot.
“This is a safe and effective vaccine,” EMA director Emer Cooke told a briefing. “If it were me, I would be vaccinated tomorrow.”
Germany announced resumption of the administering the AstraZeneca vaccine from Friday morning within hours of that announcement by EMA. The decision of the German authorities to suspend the administering of the vaccine as a cautionary step was the right call “until the clustering of this very rare type of thrombosis had been examined”, said the country’s Health Minister Jens Spahn.
Announcement of resumption of the vaccine shot was also announced by France as the country’s Prime Minister Jean Castex said that a shot of the vaccine would be received by him on Friday afternoon.
Italy would also follow suit, said the country’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi and added that vaccinating as many people as quickly as possible was the priority of the government.
A possible resumption of the AstraZeneca vaccine was being evaluated by Spain, the country said, while announcement of restarting the administration of the vaccine was made by Cyprus, Latvia and Lithuania.
Caution was the main reason for them to pause inoculations, many governments had said. But public confidence in the vaccinations could be reduced because of political interference, warned experts, which would not be good because governments are struggling to curb a resurgence of the pandemic in many parts of the world.
“We trust that, after the regulators’ careful decisions, vaccinations can once again resume across Europe,” said AstraZeneca Chief Medical Officer Ann Taylor in a statement.
20 million people given the AstraZeneca shot in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA), which links 30 European countries, were covered in the EMA’s review. At least 13 European countries had stopped administering the vaccine because of safety concerns which slowed down a vaccine roll out program that was already facing roadblocks ion the EU.
(Source:www.moneycontrol.com)
More than a dozen nations in EU and elsewhere had suspended the use of the vaccine following reports of rare brain blood clots in people after being administered the shot. This is the latest challenge for AstraZeneca in its efforts to make a “vaccine for the world” with the death toll from Cvoid-19 surpassing the 2.8 million mark globally.
The “clear’ conclusion by the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) about the AstraZeneca vaccine was that the benefits of the vaccine in protecting people from coronavirus related death or hospitalisation was much more than the possible risks - a conclusion that was reached after an investigation into 30 cases of unusual blood disorders. The EMA however did not definitively rule out a possible link between blood clots in the brain and the vaccine shot.
“This is a safe and effective vaccine,” EMA director Emer Cooke told a briefing. “If it were me, I would be vaccinated tomorrow.”
Germany announced resumption of the administering the AstraZeneca vaccine from Friday morning within hours of that announcement by EMA. The decision of the German authorities to suspend the administering of the vaccine as a cautionary step was the right call “until the clustering of this very rare type of thrombosis had been examined”, said the country’s Health Minister Jens Spahn.
Announcement of resumption of the vaccine shot was also announced by France as the country’s Prime Minister Jean Castex said that a shot of the vaccine would be received by him on Friday afternoon.
Italy would also follow suit, said the country’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi and added that vaccinating as many people as quickly as possible was the priority of the government.
A possible resumption of the AstraZeneca vaccine was being evaluated by Spain, the country said, while announcement of restarting the administration of the vaccine was made by Cyprus, Latvia and Lithuania.
Caution was the main reason for them to pause inoculations, many governments had said. But public confidence in the vaccinations could be reduced because of political interference, warned experts, which would not be good because governments are struggling to curb a resurgence of the pandemic in many parts of the world.
“We trust that, after the regulators’ careful decisions, vaccinations can once again resume across Europe,” said AstraZeneca Chief Medical Officer Ann Taylor in a statement.
20 million people given the AstraZeneca shot in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA), which links 30 European countries, were covered in the EMA’s review. At least 13 European countries had stopped administering the vaccine because of safety concerns which slowed down a vaccine roll out program that was already facing roadblocks ion the EU.
(Source:www.moneycontrol.com)
