{"id":328067,"date":"2021-03-17T11:35:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T10:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=328067"},"modified":"2021-03-17T11:39:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T10:39:52","slug":"why-have-some-countries-paused-the-astrazeneca-jab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=328067","title":{"rendered":"Why have some countries paused the AstraZeneca jab?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Why
\nWhy have several countries in Europe suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, citing fears of blood clots, even as the European Union\u2019s top regulator insists there is no evidence of a link and calls for the inoculations to continue?
\nGermany, Italy, France and at several other nations say they need time to determine whether the vaccine is in any way responsible for very rare incidents of unusual blood events.
\nBut they have faced challenges over the wisdom of pausing vaccination with AstraZeneca \u2014 a key component of national immunisation campaigns \u2014 as the epidemic sweeps the continent.
\nDeaths across Europe have topped 900,000 since the pandemic began must over a year ago, making it the worst-hit global region in absolute terms, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
\n\u201cWe are still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing Covid-19 with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death outweigh the risk of these side effects,\u201d European Medicines Agency (EMA) chief Emer Cooke said on Tuesday.
\nThe World Health Organization (WHO) and AstraZeneca have also said the shot is safe.<\/p>\n

\u2013 What\u2019s the issue? \u2013<\/h2>\n

The vaccine was developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in Britain, where more than 11 million doses have been administered without a sign of increased thrombosis risk.
\nThe EMA has said it has not detected a higher number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people than would normally be expected in the general population.
\nBut last week Denmark was the first to announce it was suspending the jab over blood clot concerns, though it stressed the move was precautionary.
\nThen on Monday, the Paul-Ehrlich Medical Institute, which advises the German government, said it believed more investigations were needed because of \u201cnew reports of thromboses of the cerebral veins in connection with the vaccination in Germany and Europe\u201d.
\nCerebral venous thrombosis \u2014 the formation of clots in veins in the brain that can cause strokes \u2014 are both \u201cmuch rarer than classic thromboses\u201d and also potentially more serious, said infectious disease specialist Odile Launay, of the Covid Vaccines Committee created by the French government.
\nGerman Health Minister Jens Spahn said seven cases of cerebral venous thrombosis had been seen out of more than 1.6 million injections.
\nThe risk was therefore \u201cvery low\u201d, he said, but added it would be above average if confirmed to be linked to the vaccine.
\nDespite the tiny number, it is the unusual type of thromboembolic events that seems to have caused the concern.
\nBut so far the EMA has not been persuaded.
\n\u201cAt present, there is no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions,\u201d the EMA\u2019s Cooke said.
\nHowever, Cooke said the regulator was \u201clooking at adverse events associated with all vaccines\u201d and expected to publish its findings on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Covid risk \u2013<\/h2>\n

As with all medicines, regulators seek to balance the benefits with any potential risks. In this case, experts say, the calculation must take into account the risk from Covid-19.
\nBelgium on Monday said it would continue using AstraZeneca, judging that to stop immunising people with an effective vaccine in the face of rising cases would be \u201cirresponsible\u201d.
\nThat echoes the view of experts across Europe, which is already lagging in its vaccine rollout compared to Britain and the United States despite rising cases.
\nStephen Evans, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said Covid-19 is known to cause sometimes very serious problems in the body\u2019s coagulation systems.
\nSo the \u201cvery likely explanation of at least some of the clotting disorders seen are a result of Covid-19 rather than the vaccine\u201d.
\n\u201cHence, even if there were a problem, acknowledged to be very rare with the AZ vaccine, the overall benefit would be so much greater than any speculative harm,\u201d he added.
\nRegardless of what the EMA reports, French specialist Launay said the damage to public confidence has likely already been done.
\nShe said, \u201cwhatever the outcome, it will have a significant impact on immunisations\u201d.
\n[<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why have several countries in Europe suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, citing fears of blood clots, even as the European Union\u2019s top regulator insists there is no evidence of a link and calls for the inoculations to continue? Germany, Italy, France and at several other nations say they need time to determine whether the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":324472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14571,3],"tags":[16486,14679],"class_list":["post-328067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-news","tag-astrazeneca","tag-vaccine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/324472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}