Denmark and Iceland have temporarily suspended inoculations with the AstraZeneca vaccine following advice from the national health agency.
The reason for the suspension is due to blood clots formed in several people who had the jab, one of whom has reportedly died following taking the jab.
It confirmed that at present it has ‘not conclusively established a link between the clots and the vaccine’, however they said it had asked the regional authorities in charge of the vaccination programme to stop using the AstraZeneca vaccine temporarily.
It reportedly means that people who have had an initial shot of the Anglo-Swedish vaccine would not receive a second jab for now, they will have to wait until the situation is resolved. Currently all AstraZeneca vaccination slots had been cancelled.
Søren Brostrøm, the agency’s director said: “We are in the middle of the largest and most important vaccination rollout in Danish history,”
“Right now we need all the vaccines we can get. It is therefore not an easy decision to put one on pause.” He added.
He also said: “Precisely because we are vaccinating so many people, we also need to respond promptly and carefully when we have knowledge of possible serious side-effects.
“We need to clarify this before we can continue using the AstraZeneca vacine.”
So far the amount of blood clots that have been reported is not known, but Austria has stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca vaccine doses while it investigates a fatality from coagulation disorders and an illness from a pulmonary embolism.
