Denmark, Norway suspend use of AstraZeneca COVID vaccine due to blood clot fears
Story highlights
More info is needed to establish direct link between the vaccines and blood clots
Health authorities in Denmark said on Thursday said that they were temporarily suspending use of COVID-19 vaccine. This precaution is being taken as some patients developed blood clots after they received the vaccine.
Danish Health Authority said in statement that suspension of AstraZeneca vaccine came "following reports of serious cases of blood clots among people vaccinated with AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine"
However, it added that "it has not been determined, at the time being, that there is a link between the vaccine and the blood clots"
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Hours after Denmark's decision, Norwegian health authorities said that they were suspending the use of AstraZeneca vaccine as a precaution.
"We are pausing the AstraZeneca vaccination in Norway," the director of infection prevention and control at the National Institute of Health, Geir Bukholm, told reporters.
"We are waiting for more information to see if there is a link between the vaccine and this blood clot case," he said.
Austria announced on Monday that it had suspended the use of a batch of AstraZeneca vaccines after a 49-year-old nurse died of "severe blood coagulation problems" days after receiving an anti-Covid shot.
Four other European countries -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxemburg -- have also suspended the use of vaccines from this batch, which was sent to 17 European countries and consisting of one million jabs.
Denmark has however suspended the use of all of its AstraZeneca supply.
On Wednesday, Europe's medicines watchdog EMA said a preliminary probe showed that the batch of AstraZeneca vaccines used in Austria was likely not to blame for the nurse's death.
As of March 9, 22 cases of blood clots had been reported among more than three million people vaccinated in the European Economic Area, the EMA said.
Meanwhile UK PM Boris Johnson's spokesperson said on Thursday that AstraZeneca vaccine was safe.
"We've been clear that it's both safe and effective... and when people are asked to come forward and take it, they should do so in confidence," said the official spokesperson
(With AFP inputs)
