The European Medicines Agency urged governments on Tuesday not to halt the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a time when the pandemic is still claiming thousands of lives each day.
This comes amid concerns that even a brief suspension in the roll-out of the vaccine could have disastrous effects on the confidence in inoculation campaigns across the globe, many of which are already struggling to overcome logistical hurdles and widespread hesitancy about vaccines.
“We are still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing Covid-19 with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death outweigh the risk of the side effects,” said Emer Cooke, the head of the agency.
Press conference by @EMA_News Executive Director Emer Cooke on the investigation on COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca and thromboembolic events. https://t.co/G81yzlfNcX
— European Commission 🇪🇺 (@EU_Commission) March 16, 2021
Pause in vaccination drive may cost lives
Many scientists have argued that even the loss of a few days in vaccinating vulnerable people could be far costlier than the impact of any rare phenomenon.
But a cascading number of countries have taken a different view and locked away shots from the Anglo-Swedish company, awaiting the results of an EMA review on reports of some recipients succumbing to deep vein thrombosis, due to be published Thursday.
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The AstraZeneca shot has already struggled to gain public trust after troubles with reporting of its data and concerns about its effectiveness in older people.
More than half of the 15 million AstraZeneca doses delivered to the EU's 27 member states are still lying in storage, according to data compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
It's been a tough week for @AstraZeneca after the use its Covid vaccine was suspended by 24 countries amid reports of blood clots. Austria was the first to sound the alarm and Denmark was the first to suspend the jab. https://t.co/L7qGXss3vv pic.twitter.com/a4pIpOjw8X
— Statista (@StatistaCharts) March 16, 2021
Suspension could lead to further scepticism
The current debate could further erode confidence in the vaccine – and that scepticism could even spread to others.
The EMA chief noted that thousands of people across the EU develop blood clots every year for a variety of reasons and that there were no reports of increased clotting incidents in the clinical studies of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
In addition to the EMA, AstraZeneca and the WHO have said there is no evidence the vaccine carries an increased risk of blood clots.
But the number of countries in the bloc that are sticking with the shot is falling after heavyweights like Germany, Italy, France and Spain all said they were suspending it.
Experts have noted that such concerns are inevitable in mass vaccination campaigns – with so many people getting shots, some are bound to get sick even if the vaccine is not to blame.
