BRUSSELS (AP) – With coronavirus cases on the rise in many places, governments faced the grimmest dilemmas on Tuesday: continue with a vaccine known to save lives or suspend the use of AstraZeneca due to reports of dangerous blood clots in a few recipients, even if the European regulator said there was “no indication” that the shot was responsible.
It has created an erratic divide around the world, forcing politicians to assess the health risks of stopping the shootings at a time when many countries, especially in Europe, are already struggling to overcome logistical hurdles and hesitant vaccines in their populations .
Sweden was the last to join a growing group of countries in the European Union prefer caution to speed, even as the head of the European Medicines Agency said the agency “firmly believes” that the benefits of the AstraZeneca injection outweigh the risks.
Emer Cooke noted on Tuesday that thousands of people in the EU develop thrombosis for various reasons every year and there were no reports of increased blood clots in the clinical trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Still, experts would conduct a “very rigorous analysis” and make a recommendation on Thursday, she said.
Europe has the luxury of choosing from several vaccine candidates – but the decision is still not an easy one on the continent, where the virus is on the rise and where the vaccination campaign has stumbled repeatedly.
The choice can be even tougher elsewhere, as many countries rely heavily on AstraZeneca, which is cheaper and easier to handle than some other shots. The vaccine has so far played a major role in the global initiative to ensure that vaccines reach poorer countries known as COVAX.
The difficulty of the decision was evident in Thailand, the first country outside of Europe to temporarily discontinue use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, only to recant on Tuesday – when the prime minister received a dose.
“There are people who are concerned,” Prayuth Chan-ocha said after receiving the injection. “But we have to believe doctors, believe in our medical professionals.”
Many other countries in Asia have also turned away their concernsalthough Indonesia has discontinued use of the shot this week, saying it would await a report from the World Health Organization on the matter.
In addition to the EMA, AstraZeneca and WHO have said there is no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of blood clots. There have been 37 reports of blood clots among the more than 17 million people who have received the vaccine in the EU and Great Britain, the company said.
“This is much lower than would be naturally expected in a general population of this size and is comparable to other approved COVID-19 vaccines,” said the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker.
But the number of countries in the bloc holding on to the shot is falling after heavyweights like Germany, Italy, France and Spain all said they were suspending it.
That left Belgium – and a handful of others, such as Poland, Romania and Greece – increasingly isolated in their insistence that stopping the shots would now do far more damage than the side effects now so hotly debated.
“If you know how the virus is circulating, it would be very imprudent to stop,” Belgian Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke told the VRT network on Tuesday.
Experts have noted that such concerns are inevitable in massive vaccination campaigns – with so many people getting injections, some will no doubt get sick, even if the vaccine isn’t to blame. That would mean “we would have to pause campaigns incessantly for the next few months”,
“We wanted to remain as scientific as possible in the media-political turmoil that is currently troubling Europe,” said Belgian virologist Yves Van Laethem.
In Spain, which announced on Monday that it would suspend the vaccine, some medical experts had doubts about the move. Amós García, president of the Spanish Vaccinology Association, said countries were over-zealous in stopping the use of AstraZeneca.
And the decisions seemed to snowball. “There is a cross-border contagion effect,” said Garcia.
“Everything triggers the principle of caution,” García told Spanish broadcaster TVE. “Once it starts, it’s like a domino, it’s going to be very difficult for a country to keep administering the vaccine,” if others stop, if only as a precaution.
With the deluge of decisions casting doubt on the AstraZeneca vaccine, despite experts’ assurances, public opinion was again tested to believe science over suspicion.
Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said the Balkan country will not stop the use of Astra-Zeneca vaccines and stressed that “unfortunately some people have doubts because of a negative campaign.”
The 27-nation EU, so often confused during the vaccination urge, was once again out of reach, with member states each making their own decision, as the executive committee called on everyone to follow the EMA’s advice. When asked if Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, would take the AstraZeneca vaccine, her spokesman Eric Mamer said “of course”.
Jordans reported from Berlin. AP reporters around the world contributed to this report.
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