There are fears of uncertainty after several countries pit a hold to the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine on Thursday over claims of blood clots, this has prompted Europe’s medical agency to quickly reassure the public there were no known health risks linked to the jab.
The brawl over the vaccine came as the world commemorated one year since the pandemic was officially declared, and threatened to dim hopes that inoculations are the ticket to returning to normal life.
The virus has now killed more than 2.6 million people, subjected billions to anti-Covid restrictions, and left the global economy in tatters — an outcome unimaginable at the outset of the crisis.
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A year on, several countries are looking to peel back restrictions put in place after a second — or even third — waves and ramp up vaccine rollouts as a way out of the crisis.
But that momentum hit a snag Thursday as Denmark, Norway, and Iceland all suspended the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab over fears it could be linked to blood clots.
Italy joined them, banning a batch of the vaccine as a precaution, even as its medicines regulator said there was currently no established link with the alleged side-effects.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued a statement seeking to assuage fears.
‘The information available so far indicates that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than that seen in the general population,” the EMA told AFP by email.
The UK in its own statement called the jab ‘safe and effective’.
French Health Minister Olivier Veran said there was ‘no need‘ to suspend the use of the vaccine.
Gavi, which co-leads the Covax programme for ensuring vaccines are equitably distributed globally, said it would wait to hear what the World Health Organization had to say.
European Union countries are eager to speed up vaccine drives after a slow start left the bloc behind the United States, Israel and Britain — leaders in the race to immunise.
Any further AstraZeneca suspensions could hamper already slow progress, with the EU under pressure to catch up and populations eager to return to a pre-pandemic reality.
Since first emerging in China at the end of 2019, the coronavirus has infected nearly 118 million people, with few parts of the globe left untouched.
The WHO officially declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11 last year as infection numbers were beginning to explode across Asia and Europe.
The only defenses to the contagious virus then appeared to be face masks and stopping people from interacting.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
