DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland temporarily suspended AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine “out of caution” on Sunday, citing reports from the Norwegian Medicines Agency regarding a group of severe blood clotting in some recipients.
Three health professionals from Norway who recently received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were being treated at the hospital for bleeding, blood clots and low platelet counts, health officials said on Saturday.
Ireland’s National Immunization Advisory Committee (NIAC) recommended a temporary postponement, pending further information from European regulators in the coming days.
Authorities in Denmark, Norway and Iceland suspended the use of the vaccine because of clotting problems, while Austria stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca vaccines last week while investigating a death from clotting disorders.
The EMA said there was no evidence that the events were caused by the vaccination, an opinion that was confirmed by the World Health Organization on Friday. AstraZeneca also said it found no evidence of an increased risk of deep vein thrombosis.
Irish authorities received some reports of clots similar to those seen in Europe last week, but nothing as serious as the cases in Norway, said Deputy Chief Medical Officer Ronan Glynn.
Glynn said the fact that the Norwegian cases were related to a group of four unusual clotting events involving the brain in people aged 30 to 40 years has raised the level of concern.
He said one of the reasons why Ireland acted now was that it should give the AstraZeneca vaccine to people of similar age with serious underlying illnesses in the next week.
“It may be nothing, we may be overreacting and I sincerely hope that in a week we will be accused of being overly cautious,” Glynn told the national broadcaster RTE.
“We hope we have data to reassure us in a few days and we will be back to work with that.”
AstraZeneca’s vaccines account for 20% of the 590,000 injections administered among Ireland’s 4.9 million inhabitants, mainly for healthcare professionals after their use was not initially recommended for people over 70 and the company provided far fewer vaccines for the European Union than agreed.
There were 4,534 COVID-19-related deaths in Ireland. The number of cases per 100,000 people in the past 14 days has dropped to 155, from an increase of 1,500 in January, although officials are concerned about a slight increase in new cases in the past few days.
Northern Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill has also raised concerns about the suspension of AstraZeneca elsewhere. The region’s assistant director of public health, Stephen Bergin, said the vaccine launch will continue.
Like the rest of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland is far ahead in its program and has inoculated over 40% of the adult population, depending heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Reporting by Padraic Halpin, edited by Bernadette Baum and Louise Heavens