After Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the Netherlands stopped administering the AstraZeneca vaccine (AZ vaccine) in the United Kingdom due to side effects such as blood clots, the governments of Germany, France and Italy announced on Monday, March 15, after a weekend of discussions, that they had finally decided to stop administering the AZ vaccine pending a more careful study by the European Union’s Medicines Agency (EMA). The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is studying the vaccine more closely. This domino effect also caused European stocks to fall on the 15th.
The German Ministry of health said on the 15th that the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which is in charge of vaccines, felt the need to further study the matter after new reports of vaccination-related cerebral vascular embolism in Germany and Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on the 15th: “As a precaution, we have decided to suspend the AZ vaccine until tomorrow afternoon, hoping that if the EU Medicines Agency gives the green light, we can quickly resume administering it.
After the suspension of the AZ vaccine in Germany and France, the Italian Medicines Agency also said it would follow the example of some European countries in suspending the vaccine. In fact, the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) banned a certain batch of AZ vaccine a few days ago, and now the decision is to extend the ban temporarily throughout the country as a precautionary measure, pending a decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Still confident in the AZ vaccine is Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted on 15 May that Canadian experts are confident that all 2019 coronavirus disease vaccines administered in the country are safe and secure, including the AZ vaccine. Trudeau said in a televised press conference: “We are obviously concerned about the results of the administration of a specific batch of vaccines in Europe, and we can assure all Canadians that we are not administering the same batch of vaccines!
Norwegian health authorities provided information on the side effects of the vaccine on the 15th, saying that a health care worker died of a brain hemorrhage after receiving the AZ vaccine in the UK, although it has not been determined whether the cause of death was related to the administration of the vaccine. This is the second such death in Norway in as many days. As a precaution, Norway has suspended the AZ vaccine for its citizens on the 11th. Norwegian health authorities also revealed on the 13th that three health care workers had been hospitalized after receiving the vaccine due to blood clots, bleeding and low platelet counts in the blood. All three were under the age of 50 and had received their first dose of AZ vaccine. One of them, a female health care worker who was reportedly in good health, passed away on the 14th due to a brain hemorrhage. She had been hospitalized on the 11th, about a week after she received the vaccine. The Norwegian Medicines Agency told reporters that it has not been possible to confirm or exclude that the incident was vaccine-related.
WHO vaccine safety experts will meet tomorrow to discuss issues related to the vaccine developed by the British company AstraZeneca, but for now countries should continue to administer the vaccine, the World Health Organization said on 15.
We don’t want people to panic and we recommend that countries continue to administer the AZ vaccine for now,” WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said at a press conference.
WHO Secretary-General Tan Desai said: “The WHO Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety has been reviewing available information and is in close contact with the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and we will meet tomorrow.
The EMA also said it will hold a special meeting on the 18th to decide how to further deal with the AZ vaccine; and said that the benefits of administering this vaccine still outweigh the risks.
According to statistics released by Taiwan‘s Central Epidemic Command Center on February 23, among the three vaccines, the AZ vaccine has a lower frequency of side effects than the BNT/Pfizer and Modena vaccines; moreover, the frequency of general side effects is lower in older people than in younger people. General side effects included injection site pain, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, and fever over 38 degrees.
Taiwan experts told the public that the frequency of side effects of the Modena vaccine was the highest among the three vaccines in terms of general side effects. In addition, the frequency of general side effects occurred less frequently in older people than in younger people; the side effects of the first dose of adenovirus vector vaccine (e.g. AZ) were higher than those of the second dose; the side effects of the second dose of mRNA vaccine (e.g. BNT/Pfizer, Modena) were higher than those of the first dose. Young people have a strong immune system and may react violently to the vaccine and have a higher chance of side effects than the elderly. Generally, the more intense the side effect symptoms are, the higher the immune effect is usually. The frequency of side effects of the Modena vaccine is the highest among the three vaccines, which may also be related to the subject population, and may be higher if there are more young people.
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