Name: Major European nations suspend AstraZeneca vaccination over fears of side effects - BBC News
Uploaded: 2021-03-16T18:20:13.000Z
Duration: 9 min 10 s
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the biggest member states of the European Union, have now joined the list of nations questioning the performance of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine.

Germany, France, Spain and Italy are all taking the precautionary measure of suspending use of the vaccine because of fears about possible side effects, including blood clots.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has already been suspended in the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, Bulgaria, Denmark and Norway.

The World Health Organization, along with the Use Very own medicines regulator, say that there is no justification for this temporary ban and leading British scientists insist that the vaccine is safe.

Our medical editor, Fergus Walsh, has the latest a public display of confidence in the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine from Northern Ireland's chief medical officer.

Today, by contrast, you can't have the jab in the Irish Republic in France, Germany and a growing list of EU countries which have temporarily suspended its use.

This is a safe, effective vaccine as recommended by amateur A and let's remember this virus kills people, kills people my age, younger people and older people, and the benefit is strongly in favor of people getting this vaccine at this time.

The EU vaccine rollout was already lagging well behind that of the UK France has said it will wait for a safety analysis from the European Medicines Agency due tomorrow before deciding whether to restart.

Using the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine decision, which is being taken, is to suspend as a precaution vaccinating with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the hope that we can resume quickly if the opinion of the European Medicines Agency allows.

10 European countries have temporarily suspended all use of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine pending safety investigations.

Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands are the latest.

Ireland paused at the weekend, following Denmark, Norway and Iceland.

Several other EU countries, including Austria, have stopped using certain batches of the vaccine.

That still leaves several EU nations using the jab, which has been approved in over 70 countries around the world.

AstraZeneca says more than 17 million people in the UK and European Union have now had its vaccine and fewer than 40 cases of blood clots have been reported.

It says the risks of having a clot are significantly lower among those who have been vaccinated compared to the general population.

We know that blood clots are remarkably common, Um and we expect them to happen in 1 to 2 people per 1000 per year, which is actually a very large number and much, much higher than the sorts of levels that we're talking about.

Scientists in the UK are frankly baffled by the decisions made in the EU.

There's concern that the pause in using the AstraZeneca job will cost lives because people won't be protected from covid and that it will damage public confidence in a highly effective vaccine.

Fergus Walsh, BBC News Let's talk a little more about this and join our Europe editor Katia Adler in Brussels, catcher Plenty of reports from across the EU of vaccine hesitancy, and it's getting worse in some areas.

And if you think about the Austro AstraZeneca job here, there was already quite a lot of European hesitancy around it.

And that is due to mixed messages from a number of European leaders earlier on in the year as to how efficient they thought the vaccine was for the over 65 ad.

On into that, the fact that many in mainland Europe you are much more vaccine wary than the majority of the public in the U.

So yes, European governments say they realize how sensitive their decision is if they decided to temporarily halt the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

But they say actually they're trying to do it to restore public confidence while it's being investigated.

So we're seeing country by country inside the EU and the rest of Europe making this decision.

But they are waiting for a pan European verdict.

We heard there from Fergus from the European Medicines Agency.

And while it's investigating those reports of blood clots, Hewitt says that it thinks that the virtues of the Oxford AstraZeneca virus far outweigh any risks because the EU needs vaccines, it doesn't have enough of them anyway here because there's been problems with delivery, and even with the vaccines that the EU has, many countries have had lots of stumbling blocks with their national roll roll outs.

We're trying to get jabs into arms and all of this.

While many European countries are facing the third wave of the coronavirus, just look at Italy reintroducing restrictions Just today, many thanks again.

Catch Adler there, Europe editor in Brussels.

And just to pick up on the last point catcher was making there.

As we were saying, Italy is one of the country's suspending the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and Italy is now facing a third wave of the pandemic with a sharp rise in the rate of infections.

So the government is introducing new restrictions, including the closure of schools, shops and restaurants.

More than half the country is affected, and for three days over Easter, that's in early April.

There will be a full national shutdown, as our correspondent Mark Lowen reports from Milan.

Okay, for 95 years, Guido Dinar does family have dressed the men of Milan, his boutique passing down from his grandparents.

But these 12 months have ruined him with losses of 75% and now closing for another lockdown.

Even Europe's fashion capital is fraying.

I hope we don't have to shut down completely like so many others here.

When I think of how this shop was my parents and grandparents life, it makes me want to cry.

If it were up to me, I would have given up already.

A third wave, fueled by the British variant, has closed shops, restaurants and schools in over half of Italy's regions, including here in Lombardy, where Europe's first wave exploded a year ago.

For families, it's like being stuck in time for the covid generation.

It's like back to square one after a year.

It's incredible that we haven't Government schools haven't had the chance to think about an alternative.

And we look at the UK thinking Wow, things are working there and here, not really.

Turbocharging Italy's Slow Vaccine Rollout This drive through center opened today in Milan, the government pledging to almost double daily jabs now and triple them by mid April.

Well, Italy is finally in full vaccine mobilization, but there's frustration here that it's taken weeks to get to this point.

Yes, there have been supply problems, but only now the drive thru starting and jabs also in schools, theaters and gyms in the race between vaccine and virus.

There's a feeling that Italy has let the latter win for too long, but just hours after vaunting it's vaccine increase.

Italy halted AstraZeneca jabs Covid's fix thrown into doubt as the pandemic drags on, it's taking the new poor with it 3.5 1000 a day.

Hand out the price of survival in this Italy's financial capital.

It's a disaster, says Rosanna, whose mother died of Covid.

Neither my family nor I can find work now.

At least this stops me sleeping under the bridge.

From the exhausted to the fearful, Italians are desperate for a sign of hope.

But for the first Western country engulfed by the virus, it's longed for path out has been pushed back again.

That way out won't be eased by concerns over the AstraZeneca vaccine and Italy's suspension of it.

But the large majority of vaccines administered here so far have been fighter.

Last year, Italy became the first country in the world to impose a national lockdown exactly two weeks before Britain.

 As you can see here tonight, this tired nation is once again shut at home, desperately hoping that this will be the last lockdown sacrifice. 