EU to resume AstraZeneca vaccine rollout after vaccine cleared by health agency
The EU’s leading states are to restart their roll-out of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine after Europe’s medicines regulator concluded it was “safe and effective”. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) reviewed the jab after 13 EU states suspended use of the vaccine over fears of a link to blood clots.
France, Italy, Spain and Portugal said they would start vaccinating residents again after the European Medicines Agency on Thursday said new expert analysis concluded that the benefits of using a Covid-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca outweigh its potential risks.
Canada and Mexico are also in talks with the U.S. to receive a combined four million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. After the EMA’s announcement, a raft of European countries said they would soon resume vaccinations, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, and Bulgaria.
The UK health regulator also said there were no links between blood clots and the Pfizer vaccine. The World Health Organization (WHO) repeated that it was better to take the AstraZeneca vaccine than not.
