Ireland on Sunday suspended the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine as a precautionary measure against problems with blood clots.
“The decision to temporarily suspend the use of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine was based on new information from Norway that emerged last night. This is a precautionary measure,” Minister of Health Stephen Donnelly tweeted.
Ronan Glynn, the deputy medical director, said experts recommended the suspension “following a report by the Norwegian Medicines Agency of four new reports of serious blood clotting events in adults following vaccination with Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca.”
But Glynn also warned that “it has not been concluded” that there was any connection between the coagulation incidents and the Astra-Zeneca injection, which Ireland started administering in early February.
The decision makes Ireland the latest in a number of European countries to announce partial or temporary suspensions of vaccination with the vaccine amid concerns about blood clotting. It also comes a day after Irish authorities recommend that the use of the AstraZenca vaccine be extended to cover people over 70.
Last week, Austria said it was suspending the use of a specific batch of vaccines after one person died and another became ill with blood clotting problems after vaccination. The batch in question was delivered to a total of 17 European countries, including Ireland.
Bulgaria announced on Friday that it was stopping inoculations with the AstraZeneca vaccine completely, citing “the occurrence of unacceptable side effects with the correct use of the vaccine”.
On Friday, a spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) said a causal link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and coagulation incidents “has not been demonstrated”.
The spokesman said the WHO group of immunization experts, SAGE, was evaluating the recent reports and would make its findings public as soon as they were available.