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News > World

WHO Will Continue To Use AstraZeneca Vaccines

  • Arrival 600,000 AstraZeneca doses in Ghana, March 1, 2021.

    Arrival 600,000 AstraZeneca doses in Ghana, March 1, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @WHOAFRO

Published 12 March 2021
Opinion

So far, Romania, Austria, Italy, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Latvia have suspended the use of this drug in their campaigns.

The World Health Organization (WHO) will distribute the AstraZeneca vaccines it purchased even though some European countries have decided not to use this product due to its potential adverse effects. 

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Assistant Director-General Mariangela Simao said the AstraZeneca doses affected by the suspensions were manufactured in Europe, while the drugs purchased by the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) facility are manufactured in India and South Korea. 

The interruption of vaccinations in several European countries raised doubts as to whether this WHO program would continue to distribute over 230 million AstraZeneca vaccines in over 140 countries. 

Besides noticing that COVAX has distributed some 30 million doses in 38 countries since February, the WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recalled that vaccines continue to be distributed very unevenly around the world.

So far, three out of four vaccines have been given to citizens residing in only ten countries. 

After thrombus formation was detected in 30 European patients who received the AstraZeneca Vaccine, Romania, Austria, Italy, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Latvia suspended the use of this drug in their immunization campaigns.  

Nevertheless, the WHO experts insisted that a clear link between the vaccine and thrombi has not yet been demonstrated. They also announced that a safety committee of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is looking into the matter.  

The WHO will continue to use AstraZeneca vaccines as long as the causes of the thrombotic events detected in these patients have not been determined.

"Up until the end of February, the UK government said there were 194 reports of “spontaneous adverse reactions” to the AstraZeneca vaccine, associated with anaphylaxis or anaphylactoid reactions," RT recalled.

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