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Germany, France, Italy Suspend Use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 Vaccine
Countries are the latest to temporarily stop giving the vaccine amid a small number
of cases of blood clotting on the continent
BERLIN—Germany, France and Italy joined a group of smaller European countries that
have temporarily stopped administering Covid-19 vaccines made by AstraZeneca AZN
0.44% PLC, saying the move was precautionary amid a small number of cases of blood
clotting reported on the continent.
Denmark last week said it had paused AstraZeneca shots for two weeks following
reports of blood clotting, and several other European countries quickly followed
suit, saying they were doing so out of an abundance of caution. Norway, Ireland and
the Netherlands are among countries that have paused vaccinating with AstraZeneca’s
shot.
Health regulators in the U.K. and Europe, along with AstraZeneca and its vaccine
development partners at the University of Oxford, say there is no known connection
between severe clotting and the shot. AstraZeneca has said the number of cases of
blood clotting among the roughly 17 million people in the European Union and U.K.
who have received the shot is lower than for the general population.
Europe’s medicines regulator said last week it was looking into around 30 reported
cases of severe clotting, out of around five million people who have received the
shot in the bloc. Last week, the regulator, the European Medicines Agency, said the
“vaccine’s benefits currently still outweigh risks” and has continued recommending
its use. The agency said most side effects are mild or moderate. Clinical trials
didn’t raise flags about blood clotting as a risk.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in announcing his country’s pause, said the EMA
was expected to publish a recommendation regarding the vaccine on Tuesday. The
agency didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The series of pauses across Europe threatens to undermine the AstraZeneca vaccine’s
credibility just three months into its rollout. The U.K. was the first country to
adopt the shot for mass use, at the end of December.
The shot previously faced skepticism over clinical-trial results that suggested it
wasn’t as effective as other vaccines hitting the market. Some of those perceptions
have faded as the U.K. inoculated millions of people with the shot, generating
real-world data that showed it to be strongly effective in preventing severe
disease and death.
Last week, reports surfaced of a potential clotting issue, with one death and a
case of severe illness, in Austria. That country suspended one batch of the vaccine
but said it didn’t have evidence of a connection between the health incidents and
the shot and kept using it otherwise.
Last week, AstraZeneca warned it would fall short of projected vaccine deliveries
to Europe in coming months, by 100 million doses—almost two-thirds less than what
the continent was expecting based on the company’s earlier pledges.
AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot has repeatedly pushed back against doubts
about the shot’s effectiveness and criticism of its rollout. Last month,
AstraZeneca said it would roughly double global vaccine production to 200 million
doses a month by April.
In Germany, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which regulates vaccine use, said it became
concerned by an unspecified number of new cases showing thrombosis, blood-platelet
deficiency and bleeding in people soon after vaccination with the AstraZeneca shot.
In a statement on its website Monday, the institute said it recommended temporarily
halting use of the vaccine until further study by the EMA after seeing what it
called a “striking accumulation” of those symptoms.
The regulator recommended that people who “feel increasingly unwell” more than four
days after receiving a vaccination should seek medical attention. It flagged
severe, persistent headaches or “pinpoint bleeding” of the skin as symptoms of
concern.
Covid-19 itself is known to cause blood clots, a factor researchers say they are
taking into account when considering the benefits versus potential risks of
vaccination.
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Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com and Jenny Strasburg at
jenny.strasburg@wsj.com
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