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The European Medicines Agency endorses the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine

The AstraZeneca vaccine.
The AstraZeneca vaccine. / SUR

  • Spain's Ministry of Health, which had promised to follow the recommendations of the European regulator, plans to convene an urgent meeting of regions this Thursday afternoon to discuss resuming vaccinations with the British formula

  • MELCHOR SÁIZ-PARDO / ÁLVARO SOTO

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), after three days of intensive studies, says it does not see any conclusive evidence linking the unusual blood clots detected in some thirty EU citizens after they had been injected with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The EMA’s Committee for the Evaluation of Risks in Pharmacovigilance (PRAC) has urged the ten European countries who have suspended vaccination with AstraZeneca, including Spain, to resume it as soon as possible – although their request isn’t binding.

France, Germany, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Norway, Iceland, Ireland, Bulgaria and the Netherlands have also suspended the use of the formula.

The EMA’s decision came just minutes after the UK's medicines regulatory authority (MHRA) also decided that vaccination with the AstraZeneca formula should also continue.

Spain is investigating three possible cases of blood clots in people who received a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine - including the 43-year-old Marbella teacher who died of a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday.

The country’s Ministry of Health, which had promised to follow the recommendations issued by the PRAC, has urgently convened a national health system meeting with the autonomous regions for this afternoon - the third this week - to agree how to reactivate the immunisation campaign with the British formula.

Spain, until the AstraZeneca vaccination was paused on Monday, had injected a total of 975,661 doses.

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