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Ireland, Netherlands Halt AstraZeneca Rollout

Published

4 years ago

Mar 15, 2021.

The two countries join a growing list of those who have lost confidence in the vaccine
But countries like the UK, Nigeria, among others have stood by the vaccine, assuring citizens of its safety

Ireland and the Netherlands on Sunday became the latest countries to suspend their rollouts of AstraZeneca jabs over concerns about post-jab blood clots despite the firm insisting there was no risk, as most Italians were bracing for a new round of restrictions.

Vaccinations are a key tool to end the worst of a pandemic that has killed more than 2.6 million people since it emerged in China in late 2019.

So far more than 350 million doses have been doled out across the world, but countries including Denmark, Norway and Bulgaria suspended the rollout of jabs from the Anglo/Swedish pharma giant this week after reports of blood clots developing in patients who had received the shot.

The World Health Organization (WHO), Europe’s medicines watchdog, governments and experts have stressed that no causal link has been established between the vaccine and blood clotting and insisted that the shot is safe.

An AstraZeneca spokesman said it had found no evidence of increased risk of blood clot conditions after analysing reported cases from more than 17 million doses.

“In fact, the reported numbers of these types of events for COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca are lower than the number that would have occurred naturally in the unvaccinated population,” said the spokesman.

AstraZeneca’s shot is among the cheapest available and forms a bulk of deliveries to poorer nations under the WHO-backed Covax initiative, which aims to ensure vaccines get to all parts of the globe.

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