The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
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LONDON – Denmark announced Thursday that it will temporarily suspend the use of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
The Danish Health Authority said it would temporarily stop using the vaccine in its vaccination program as a precaution “after reports of serious cases of blood clots in people who were vaccinated with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine.”
“In this context, the European Medicines Agency launched an investigation into the AstraZeneca vaccine. A report refers to a death in Denmark. At the moment, it cannot be concluded whether there is a link between the vaccine and blood clots,” said the authority said in a statement.
It did not specify how many reports of blood clots occurred or where they originated.
The announcement comes after a similar move in Austria earlier in the week, where authorities are investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after receiving doses of the vaccine.
AstraZeneca’s shares in the London market fell 2.4% on Thursday morning. Oxford University declined to comment on the announcement when contacted by CNBC.
An AstraZeneca spokesman said the company was aware of the statement made by the Danish Health Authority that it is currently investigating potential adverse effects related to the vaccine.
“Patient safety is the highest priority for AstraZeneca. Regulators have clear and rigorous efficacy and safety standards for the approval of any new drug, and that includes the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine. The safety of the vaccine has been widely studied in Phase III clinical trials and peer-reviewed data confirm that the vaccine is generally well tolerated, “said AstraZeneca in a statement to CNBC.
Søren Brostrøm, director of the National Health Council of Denmark, insconsidered that the 14-day suspension was a precaution pending the investigations.
“It is important to emphasize that we did not choose the AstraZeneca vaccine, but we are suspending it. There is good evidence that the vaccine is safe and effective. But we and the Danish Medicines Agency have to react to reports of possible serious side effects, both from Denmark and other European countries, “he said.
Austria worries
Austrian health authorities suspended the use of the ABV5300 batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine after a person was diagnosed with multiple thrombosis (formation of blood clots within the blood vessels) and died 10 days after vaccination, and another was hospitalized with pulmonary embolism after being vaccinated.
“The latter is recovering now,” the European Medicines Agency said on Wednesday.
However, the EMA added that “there is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine.”
EMA noted that the same ABV5300 batch was delivered to 17 EU countries and comprises 1 million doses of the vaccine.
“Some EU countries have also subsequently suspended this batch as a precautionary measure, while a full investigation is ongoing. Although a quality defect is considered unlikely at this stage, the quality of the batch is being investigated,” said the EMA.
He added that his safety committee was reviewing the issue and “investigating the cases reported with the batch, as well as all other cases of thromboembolic events and other conditions related to blood clots, reported after vaccination.”
“The information available so far indicates that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated persons is not higher than that observed in the general population.”
On March 9, “22 cases of thromboembolic events were reported among the 3 million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the European Economic Area,” said the EMA.
UK and EU dependency
Final-stage clinical trials found that the AstraZeneca-Oxford injection had an average 70% effectiveness in protecting against the virus. A more recent study by Oxford researchers found that the Covid vaccine was 76% effective in preventing symptomatic infection for three months after a single dose, and that the rate of effectiveness actually increased with a longer interval between the first and the second. doses.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is being used heavily in the UK and in European Union immunization implementations.
The UK has already vaccinated more than 22 million people with the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine and is currently using only the AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.