DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland on Sunday temporarily suspended AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine “out of an abundance of caution”, citing reports from the Norwegian Medicines Agency of a cluster of severe blood clotting in some recipients there.
Three health workers in Norway who recently received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were hospitalized for bleeding, blood clots and low platelet counts, health authorities said Saturday.
Ireland’s National Immunization Advisory Committee (NIAC) has recommended the temporary suspension pending receipt of more information from European regulators in the coming days.
Authorities in Denmark, Norway and Iceland have suspended use of the vaccine due to clotting problems, while Austria stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca injections last week in the investigation of a death from coagulation disorders.
EMA has said there is no indication that the events were triggered by the vaccination, a view echoed by the World Health Organization on Friday. AstraZeneca also said it found no evidence of an increased risk of deep vein thrombosis.
Irish authorities have received some reports of clotting similar to those observed in Europe last week, but none as serious as the cases in Norway, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Ronan Glynn said.
Glynn said the fact that the Norwegian cases were related to a cluster of four unusual clotting events involving the brain in 30- to 40-year-olds raised greater concern.
He said one of the reasons Ireland acted now was that it was planned to give the AstraZeneca vaccine next week to people of the same age with serious underlying conditions.
“It may be nothing, we may be overreacting and I sincerely hope that in a week’s time we will be accused of being overly cautious,” Glynn told national broadcaster RTE.
“Hopefully we will have data to reassure us within a few days and we can get back to work.”
AstraZeneca vaccinations account for 20% of the 590,000 injections administered to Ireland’s 4.9 million residents, mainly to health professionals after their use was initially not recommended for over-70s and the company provided far fewer vaccines to the European Union then it was agreed.
There have been 4,534 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland. The number of cases per 100,000 people in the past 14 days has fallen to 155 from a peak of more than 1,500 in January, although officials are concerned about a slight increase in the number of new cases in recent days.
Northern Ireland Deputy Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill also expressed concerns about AstraZeneca’s suspension elsewhere. The region’s assistant director of public health Stephen Bergin said the roll-out of the vaccine will continue.
Like the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland is much further ahead of its program and has vaccinated more than 40% of the adult population, relying heavily on AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
Reporting by Padraic Halpin, published by Bernadette Baum and Louise Heavens