AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine has been shown to be well tolerated in patients in clinical trials. This is stated in a statement by the company, which is at the disposal of the television channel CNBC on Thursday, March 11.
Thus, the company reacted to the fact that the authorities of a number of European countries decided to suspend the use of the vaccine due to cases of blood clots in vaccinated patients.
“Patient safety is the highest priority for AstraZeneca. The safety of the vaccine has been extensively studied during the third phase of clinical trials. The peer reviewed data confirm that the vaccine is generally well tolerated, ”the report says.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), for its part, recommended that EU countries continue to use the vaccine. So they indicated that the investigation of cases of thromboembolic complications is ongoing and so far there is no evidence that it was vaccination that caused them.
Earlier on March 11, Denmark decided to suspend vaccination with AstraZeneca due to complaints of blood clots after the vaccine was administered. The country’s health minister, Magnus Heunike, said that it has not yet been possible to establish a connection between AstraZeneca vaccination and the formation of blood clots, but the country wants to prevent complications and considers it important to conduct an investigation.
Following Denmark, the authorities in Italy, Norway and Iceland adopted a similar decision for precautionary reasons. As specified in the Italian Agency for Medicines (Aifa), the causal relationship between the introduction of the vaccine and what happened in Denmark has not yet been established, but the verification continues. The authorities of Estonia advised to refuse vaccination with the drug for people prone to thrombosis.
In addition, on the same day, the Dutch side effects center Lareb received a message about a suspected thrombosis in a patient after being vaccinated against coronavirus infection with a drug from AstraZeneca.
On March 7, the Austrian authorities also announced a decision to suspend vaccination against COVID-19 with one batch of AstraZeneca vaccine as a precautionary measure when investigating the death of a patient after vaccination.