Several European Nations Halt AstraZeneca Inoculations After Patients See Blood Clots

A number of EU countries have temporarily put AstraZeneca (AZ) vaccinations on hold after some patients given the shot formed blood clots, but the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it has no reason to believe the vaccine is responsible.

At the center of the issue is a million-dose batch of AZ’s vaccine allocated to 17 EU member states. Alarms were raised after Austria’s health regulator suspended use of vaccines from the batch, reporting blood clots in two patients that resulted in one hospitalization and one death.

The EMA, which noted that there were two additional reports of thromboembolic events for the vaccine batch, said that there is “currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine.”

As of March 9, for all batches of the AZ vaccine, there had been 22 cases of thromboembolic events reported among the 3 million Europeans who received the vaccine, the agency said. It is conducting a full investigation into the matter despite the small number of cases  — and said that while it doubts the issue was caused by a quality defect, it is looking into the quality of the batch.

“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 said.

Other member states that also moved to pause AZ vaccinations include Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Norway, with differing levels of caution. Denmark, Iceland and Norway, for example, opted to temporarily halt AZ vaccinations entirely, while Italy paused vaccinations from one batch of vaccine.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), meanwhile, called for inoculations with the AZ vaccine to continue as the incidents are investigated.

“More than 11 million doses of the COVID-19 [AZ] vaccine have now been administered across the UK. Reports of blood clots received so far are not greater than the number that would have occurred naturally in the vaccinated population,” MHRA said. “We are keeping this issue under close review but available evidence does not confirm that the vaccine is the cause. People should still go and get their COVID-19 vaccine when asked to do so.”

A spokesperson for AstraZeneca said an analysis of “more than 10 million records has shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis in any defined age group, gender, batch or in any particular country with COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca. In fact, the observed number of these types of events are significantly lower in those vaccinated than what would be expected among the general population.” — James Miessler