Denmark has stopped administering the AstraZeneca covid19 vaccine.
In doing so it’s become the first European Country to cease using the jab, amid the widely reported concerns surrounding rare cases of blood clotting.
The decision will further defer the scheduled conclusion of Denmark’s vaccination scheme to early August according to the country’s health authorities, but that new timeline assumes it will start using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
That rollout has also been delayed over similar clotting concerns and the use of which Denmark has suspended.
The J & J shot comprises around a third of the country’s total contracted supply.
Results of investigations into the AstraZeneca-associated blood clots “showed real and serious side-effects,” Danish health agency head Soren Brostrom told a news briefing.
“We have therefore chosen to continue the vaccination programme for all target groups without this vaccine.”
“Implementation and rollout of the vaccine programme is a matter for each country to decide, based on local conditions,” the Anglo-Swedish company said.
The European Union’s drug watchdog said last week it had found a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), a brain blood clot.
It said the risk of dying from COVID-19 was much greater than the risk of mortality from rare side effects, but left it to individual states to make their own risk assessments and decide how to administer the vaccine.
