Use Of AstraZeneca Vaccine suspended in Denmark, Iceland and Norway

Denmark, Iceland and Norway have suspended use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as a precaution amid reports of blood clotting in some people who have received it.

The Danish health authority said that there was a reported death in the country but that “at present, it cannot be concluded whether there is a link between the vaccine and the blood clots.”

Use of the vaccine will be suspended until further notice, the health authority said on Thursday, but the decision will be reviewed in two weeks’ time.

Shortly after the Danish announcement, Iceland followed suit.

Hours later, the Norwegian health authority also said they too would suspend vaccinations after the report from Denmark.

Norway’s health authorities announced on Thursday that they were suspending the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine as a precaution after Denmark did so due to concerns about a link to blood clots.

“We are pausing the AstraZeneca vaccination in Norway,” the director of infection prevention and control at the National Institute of Health, Geir Bukholm, told reporters.

“We are waiting for more information to see if there is a link between the vaccine and this blood clot case,” he said.

It comes after Austria suspended a batch of the vaccines following the death of a woman due to multiple blood clots and the hospitalisation of another person with a blockage in the arteries of the lungs.

The vaccine batch, which comprised of one million doses, was subsequently suspended in four other EU countries as a precaution.

The European Medicines Agency said they were reviewing the incidents as well as all other “conditions related to blood clots” but a preliminary review suggested there was no “specific issue” with the batch.

As of Tuesday, the medicines regulator said, there were 22 cases of blood clotting reported among the three million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area.

“We are in the middle of the largest and most important vaccination rollout in Danish history. And right now we need all the vaccines we can get. Therefore, putting one of the vaccines on pause is not an easy decision,” said Søren Brostrøm, Director General of the Danish Health Authority.

“But precisely because we vaccinate so many, we also need to respond with timely care when there is knowledge of possible serious side effects. We need to clarify this before we can continue to use the vaccine from AstraZeneca.”

The change means that people who have received their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Denmark will have to wait before they receive the second dose, the health authority said.

Frontline health staff aged 65 or over will continue to receive vaccination appointments with one of the other two vaccines, they specified.

The authority said they are not opting out of the AstraZeneca vaccine but just putting it on hold.