Leading EU countries resume AstraZeneca vaccination as medical regulator says it is safe

Leading EU countries on Thursday decided to resume AstraZeneca vaccinations after European medical regulator stated that the jab is “safe and effective.” The European medical regulator has declined the concerns associated with AstraZeneca vaccines that it created blood clot.

According to Agence France-Presse, the closely-watched announcement from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) came after the WHO and Britain’s health watchdog both said the vaccine was safe, adding that it was far riskier to not get the shot as several countries face a worrying rise in coronavirus cases.

After the EMA’s announcement, a raft of European countries said they would soon resume vaccinations, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia and Bulgaria, AFP reported.

France on Thursday became the latest nation to toughen Covid restrictions, announcing a month-long limited lockdown for Paris and several other regions to try and stave off a third wave of infections that has overwhelmed hospitals.

The EMA’s chief Emer Cooke said Thursday that after an investigation into the AstraZeneca jab, its “committee has come to a clear scientific conclusion: this is a safe and effective vaccine”.

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

However, the agency said it “cannot rule out definitively” a link to a rare clotting disorder.

The UK health regulator also said there were no links between blood clots and the Pfizer vaccine.

The World Health Organization (WHO) repeated that it was better to take the AstraZeneca vaccine than not.

AstraZeneca’s chief medical officer Ann Taylor said that “vaccine safety is paramount and we welcome the regulators’ decisions which affirm the overwhelming benefit of our vaccine in stopping the pandemic”.

However Norway and Sweden said they were not ready to resume using the vaccine.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health said it “took note” of the EMA’s ruling, but it was “premature” to draw conclusions and it would announce its own opinion by the end of next week,the AFP report said.