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When European drug regulators recognized a link between AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine and a rare type of blood clot, it spread a new dose of skepticism across the continent. But in the poorer East, doubts are more about the findings than the shot.
Most Western members of the European Union announced some restrictions on the use of the vaccine for younger age groups or stopped it altogether. The opposite happened in the east, with nine of the eleven countries in the region deciding to continue administering the shot to all adults.
“Let’s not cause unnecessary panic,” said Bulgarian Health Minister Kostadin Angelov as he listed the benefits of the Astra drug. “Let’s not be part of that war between the different companies, because it is already visible.”
The former Eastern Bloc is home to, and is, nearly a quarter of the EU’s 440 million inhabitants struggling to tame the pandemic. For these countries – that dominate the top 10 in the world deaths from coronavirus per capita – curbing a vaccine essential to their supply is unthinkable because they can’t afford to delay inoculation. Germany, In comparison, the number of daily vaccinations against Covid-19 has doubled, while France reached an important milestone a week earlier.
Divided continent
Europe is failing to chart a coordinated course on the side effects of the Astra vaccine
Source: Bloomberg
The world is counting on the Astra shot for its price and ease of use, and it represents the majority of the vaccines ordered by about a third of eastern EU members. The vaccine is more easily transported and stored than Moderna Inc. mRNA-based vaccines. and Pfizer-BioNTech, and the Anglo-Swedish company has pledged to deliver as many as 3 billion non-profit shots by 2021.
Read more: AstraZeneca’s vaccination drama Risks that extend the pandemic
Hungary, which deviated from the EU-orchestrated procurement program and Vaccines bought directly from Russia and China, has also tried to show its support for Astra.
“The debate over AstraZeneca’s vaccine should be seen as a business battle between drug manufacturers rather than valid opinions on medical risks,” Gergely Gulyas, the minister in charge of the prime minister’s office, said on April 8.
The day before, EU and UK regulators said they did a possible link between the Astra injection and blood clots, although both said the risks far outweigh the benefits for most people, as the coronavirus is still widespread. Great Britain, whose vaccination program is way ahead of the rest of the continent, now recommends getting another one under 30.
A health worker checks a patient’s health before the AstraZeneca vaccine is administered at the mayor’s office in the village of Gardevtsi, Bulgaria.
Photographer: Nikolay Doychinov / AFP / Getty Images
In Bulgaria, the poorest and least vaccinated country in the EU, the more expensive vaccines were used to inoculate priority groups such as doctors and teachers. Astra is most widely available to the general public.
The country’s vaccination attempt was already there marred by poor organization and a 37% refusal rate among 7 million citizens to get vaccinated, according to a March poll by Exacta Research. Bulgaria will continue to apply the Astra injection to all age groups, but will offer another shot to women at high risk of thrombosis, in line with the recommendations of the EMA, the health minister said.
Leaders elsewhere have spoken out about their own inoculation at Astra, hoping to bolster its credibility as citizens become restless from protracted lockdowns and an ongoing string of record numbers related to coronavirus and new infections.
In Croatia, one of the countries that mainly ordered Astra, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday that he and other leaders have been given the injection, stressing that “the vaccine is safe and people should be vaccinated.”
Andrej Plenkovic will receive the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 24 in Zagreb.
Souce: AFP / Getty Images
In Estonia, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who at the age of 43 would be considered a more risky age group for the Astra shooting in Western Europe, expressed disappointment with her coalition partner for delaying his vaccination. The government and parliament decided last month to make Astra recordings for all its members. Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins, meanwhile, said this week that it is better to get a vaccine than to run the risk of getting the disease.
To Stjepan Oreskovic, professor of public health at the University of Zagreb, the split between east and west above Astra has exposed the EU’s weaknesses. The pandemic has also exposed how the countries that have joined the bloc since 2004 have done little to upgrade their health care systems hurt by lack of money and the exodus of workers to Western Europe.
“It revealed the traditional distribution of power in the EU and showed that we still have the center and the periphery,” said Oreskovic. “In other words, the west and the east.”
– Assisted by Milda Seputyte, Aaron Eglitis, Dorota Bartyzel, Piotr Skolimowski, Peter Laca, Andra Timu, Marton Eder, Zoe Schneeweiss and Fergal O’Brien