Ireland suspends use of Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19

The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) recommended the move following reports of serious blood clotting events in adults in Norway.

In a tweet, the Irish Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said it was a “precautionary step”.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said there was no link between the jab and an increased risk of developing a clot.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said it was aware of the suspension in Ireland and was “closely reviewing reports”.

“But given the large number of doses administered, and the frequency at which blood clots can occur naturally, the evidence available does not suggest the vaccine is the cause,” a spokesperson said.

What you need to know about vaccine safety

On Friday, the World Health Organisation said countries should not stop using the vaccine over fears it causes blood clots as there is no indication this is true .
More than 110,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been administered in Ireland, which is about 20 percent of all doses given to date.

Ireland’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said new information had been received from the Norwegian Medicines Agency on Saturday night and that, while there is no conclusion that there’s a link to the AstraZenica vaccine, the decision to suspend the vaccine programme came from “an abundance of caution”.

He told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that there have been no reports of clotting events in Ireland similar to those seen in Norway and that there should still be full confidence in the vaccine programme.

Dr Glynn added that he hoped there will be more “reassuring data” this week and that the programme can restart.

“It may be nothing, we may be overreacting and I sincerely hope that in a week’s time we are accused of being overcautious,” he said.

No reason to stop using AstraZeneca jab – WHO
AstraZeneca defends EU vaccine rollout plan
In a statement to RTÉ , AstraZeneca said that an analysis of safety data covering more than 17 million doses of the vaccine administered has shown no evidence of an increased risk of the conditions concerned, and that no trends or patterns were observed in clinical trials.

“In fact, the reported numbers of these types of events for Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca are not greater than the number that would have occurred naturally in the unvaccinated population,” said a spokesperson.

“A careful review of all available safety data including these events is ongoing and AstraZeneca is committed to sharing information without delay.”

Northern Ireland’s Health Minister, Robin Swann tweeted that Covid-19 vaccines are administered “under the expert direct of the MHRA”.

Prof Adam Finn, a member of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), warned that, given evidence of the vaccine’s “real-world effectiveness”, a “stop-start approach” to the vaccine programme needed to be considered carefully.

“If clear evidence of serious or life threatening side-effects emerges that will have important consequences,” he said.

“However so far it hasn’t and it’s highly undesirable to disrupt a complex and urgent programme every time people develop illnesses after receiving vaccine that may be coincidental and not causally related.”

Last week, after Iceland, Norway and Denmark suspended the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca, the MHRA said people should continue to get vaccinated.

“Blood clots can occur naturally and are not uncommon. More than 11 million doses of the Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine have now been administered across the UK,” said Phil Bryan of the MHRA.

“People should still go and get their Covid-19 vaccine when asked to do so.”

The Public Health Agency in NI said it would “closely monitor” the situation.

“From our perspective the vaccine is safe and we’re continuing to use it,” said Dr Stephen Bergin, interim Director of Public Health.

“We’ve had good experience over the last three months now, we’ve had over 600,000 people vaccinated, not all of course with this particular vaccine.”

Moreover, Confiance News reports that in Nigeria, the vaccination of Oxford-AstraZeneca has began with major government officials, including Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, healthcare workers and some Nigerians, no incident of blood clotting has been reported to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) as at the time of filing in this report.

(BBC)

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