Ireland temporarily suspends AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

Health personnel prepares a dose of the Astrazeneca vaccine against COVID-19, in Milan, Italy

Credit: Shutterstock/Shutterstock

Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg have all suspended the use of batch used in Austria, which was followed by one death from coagulation disorders and one illness from a pulmonary embolism. Italy has suspended the use of another batch.

The World Health Organization said on Friday that there was no reason for countries to stop using AstraZeneca’s vaccine, with an ongoing analysis by its vaccines advisory committee so far establishing no causal link between the vaccine and blood clots.

AstraZeneca has also insisted that the jab is safe, claiming data from the 17 million vaccine doses so far provided no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or low levels of platelets.

“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,” a company spokeswoman said.

The country on Saturday warned of further shortfalls in its deliveries to European countries, due to lower-than-expected production output and export restrictions. 

"AstraZeneca is disappointed to announce a shortfall in planned Covid-19 vaccine shipments to the European Union… despite working tirelessly to accelerate supply," it said.

The European medicine regulator, the European Medicines Agency, on Friday added severe allergies to the list of possible side effects from the AstraZeneca vaccine following evidence from the UK.

On Friday it launched a review of the blood clot risk associated with the vaccine, which will include an analysis of the new cases from Norway.