Mar 16, 2021 02:54 AM
(This post was last modified: Mar 16, 2021 03:03 AM by C C.)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/leahrosenba...d-vaccine/
EXCERPTS: On Monday, Germany, France, Italy and Spain became the latest countries to halt the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. These countries are following in the footsteps of Denmark, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands and Thailand, who have also suspended use of the vaccine, which has yet to be authorized for use in the United States.
[...] Davey Smith, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California San Diego, is baffled by governments’ decisions to suspend use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. “I’ve seen no data to see why they are stopping,” he says, adding, “People are going to get blood clots, because they would have gotten them with or without the vaccine.”
Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, also expressed surprise at these government’s moves. “Pausing to review data is fine,” she says. “But what pausing means is losing ground against protecting people against a deadly pandemic, so there is something lost with that.”
Once considered to be the leader in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine, AstraZeneca has ended up facing more hurdles than its competitors [...] So why are so many European countries taking the seemingly radical step of halting administration outright?
In a report published earlier this month by Barclays, the investment firm looked at some of AstraZeneca’s previous regulatory issues and suggested that “most of the controversy that has been had a political genesis rather than a scientific one.” In noting some of the differences between what EMA had approved for the vaccine versus how some European countries had authorized use of the vaccine, the report goes on to speculate that “authorities in certain geographies may have been looking for someone to blame for an initially frustrating rollout.”
Public health experts speculated to Forbes that similar reasons may have fueled the recent suspensions. An interesting contrast can be seen in Canada, which is reportedly preparing to expand its authorization of the vaccine to senior citizens, when it had previously not been recommended for adults over 65.
Justified or not, halting administration of AstraZeneca’s vaccine risks exacerbating an already strong reluctance to get vaccinated. A recent policy brief from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control found that less than half of people in the E.U. believe that Covid-19 vaccines are safe... (MORE - details)
RELATED (scivillage): Growing number of nations suspend AstraZeneca covid vaccine
EXCERPTS: On Monday, Germany, France, Italy and Spain became the latest countries to halt the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. These countries are following in the footsteps of Denmark, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands and Thailand, who have also suspended use of the vaccine, which has yet to be authorized for use in the United States.
[...] Davey Smith, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California San Diego, is baffled by governments’ decisions to suspend use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. “I’ve seen no data to see why they are stopping,” he says, adding, “People are going to get blood clots, because they would have gotten them with or without the vaccine.”
Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, also expressed surprise at these government’s moves. “Pausing to review data is fine,” she says. “But what pausing means is losing ground against protecting people against a deadly pandemic, so there is something lost with that.”
Once considered to be the leader in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine, AstraZeneca has ended up facing more hurdles than its competitors [...] So why are so many European countries taking the seemingly radical step of halting administration outright?
In a report published earlier this month by Barclays, the investment firm looked at some of AstraZeneca’s previous regulatory issues and suggested that “most of the controversy that has been had a political genesis rather than a scientific one.” In noting some of the differences between what EMA had approved for the vaccine versus how some European countries had authorized use of the vaccine, the report goes on to speculate that “authorities in certain geographies may have been looking for someone to blame for an initially frustrating rollout.”
Public health experts speculated to Forbes that similar reasons may have fueled the recent suspensions. An interesting contrast can be seen in Canada, which is reportedly preparing to expand its authorization of the vaccine to senior citizens, when it had previously not been recommended for adults over 65.
Justified or not, halting administration of AstraZeneca’s vaccine risks exacerbating an already strong reluctance to get vaccinated. A recent policy brief from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control found that less than half of people in the E.U. believe that Covid-19 vaccines are safe... (MORE - details)
RELATED (scivillage): Growing number of nations suspend AstraZeneca covid vaccine