Spain could join Germany, France and Italy in suspending vaccination with AstraZeneca

Spain could join the list of countries that have suspended the use of AstraZeneca. According to local media, the Ministry of Health is in favor of this, although the approval of the Interterritorial Council remains.

Germany, France and Italy have already suspended preventively the use of the AstraZeneca formula against the coronavirus after the detection of several cases of thrombosis, according to official sources.

The German Government thus follows the recommendation of the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), competent in the matter, which considers that it is necessary to verify the potential relationship between this vaccine and the new cases of thrombosis registered in Europe after its inoculation.

The German Ministry of Health pointed out that it will be in any case the European Medicines Agency (EMA) who ultimately decides “if this new information affects the authorization of the vaccine and in what way.”

These countries thus join the decision to stop the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, as the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland have done in recent days.

The EMA has so far identified around thirty cases of thrombosis following a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. In total, some five million doses have been administered in the European Union (EU).

The EMA has pointed out that the rate of thrombosis among those vaccinated “is not higher than that of the population as a whole”, but has added that it is necessary to analyze what happened in detail.

AstraZeneca’s formula, weighed down from the outset by doubts about its effectiveness and possible side effects, is the third authorized in the EU, behind those of BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna.

Following its authorization in the EU, the German Government – following the indications of the PEI – recommended using AstraZeneca only for people between 18 and 64 years old, considering that insufficient tests had been carried out with older people.

Recently, and with the aim of accelerating the vaccination campaign, the federal government and the federated states advocated removing this restriction and using AstraZeneca’s in the entire population, as well as the other two vaccines against coronavirus.

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