Home » Coronavirus Updates » Blood Clot: 8 European nations suspend use of Astrazeneca Vaccine
Coronavirus Updates
Follow us on Google

March 11, 2021

Blood Clot: 8 European nations suspend use of Astrazeneca Vaccine

Uganda will import five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines next month after the discovery of new COVID-19 variants in the country, President Yoweri Museveni has said. In a televised address to the nation late Friday, Museveni said the vaccines will be used to vaccinate at least 80 per cent of the 5.5 million elderly. People below 50 years, with underlying medical conditions that are at high risk of contracting the novel coronavirus, will also be vaccinated. Uganda targets to vaccinate more than 21.9 million people who face the highest risk of the infection, including the health workers, teachers, social workers and security personnel, elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. “The government is working hard to ensure we bring another five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine before the end of May to complete the threshold vaccination and ensure that those vaccinated before getting the second booster dose,’’ said Museveni. “Vaccines are the most effective intervention we have against COVID-19. “The government and partners are working hard to bring vaccines to most adult Ugandans to protect them and to support us to reopen the economy and get back all our children to school.’’ Henry Mwebesa, Director-General of Health Services, last week said Uganda is scheduled to receive some two million more doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in May through the COVAX facility. Uganda has so far received 964,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX vaccine sharing programme and the Indian government. As of April 16, a total of 220,893 people had been inoculated with the first jab of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Health statistics. The country has reported the emergence of the highly transmissible COVID-19 variants which were first reported in Britain, South Africa and Nigeria. The ministry’s data showed that as of April 16, Uganda had registered a cumulative total of 41,340 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 40,898 recoveries and 338 deaths.

By Sola Ogundipe

EIGHT European nations including Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland have decided to stop using the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday due to serious blood clot incidents reported in many countries.

About 30 incidents of harmful blood clots in patients who received the vaccine were recorded, including at least one case in Denmark where the patient died.

The reason for halting the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is due to reports of serious blood clots after vaccination.

The Health Minister of Denmark confirmed the suspension of AstraZeneca Jabs via a tweet. He said “there’s currently no ways to know for certain whether the cases of serious blood clots are connected to the vaccine, but the situation warrants investigation. We acted early, it needs to be thoroughly investigated.”

[ALSO READ] Ministry unveils new enrolment portal for N-Power batch C program

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi halted a shipment of AstraZeneca jabs to Australia. Health authorities in Italy also suspended jabs from the current batch of the vaccine. But health authorities in London and Brussels dismissed the issues, insisting that this vaccine is safe while going with plans to approve Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose jab.

The EU medicines regulator said it was recommending the vaccine be authorised for all adults over 18 “after a thorough evaluation” of J&J’s data found the vaccine met criteria for efficacy, safety and quality.

Health authorities in Denmark are worried about the adverse side effects believed to be related with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Many patients have reported cases of blood clots they received after getting vaccinated. This suspension will last two weeks.

Vanguard News Nigeria

Disclaimer

Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof.