British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday, 16 March, assured people that the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine was safe to use and that the UK government was confident in pushing the vaccination.
Boris further said, "In the MHRA (Britain's medicines regulator), we have one of the toughest and most experienced regulators in the world. They see no reason at all to discontinue the vaccination programme," AFP reported. "So we continue to be very confident about the programme and it's great to see it being rolled out at such speed across the across the UK," he further added.
Why Are People Afraid of AstraZeneca?
After receiving news of four serious cases from Norway, where two of the vaccine recipients died from brain haemorrhage and others developed blood clots, doubts have been cast on the safety of the vaccine.
Johnson’s statement comes after France, Germany and Italy on Monday, 15 March, joined hands to stop the rollout of AstraZeneca vaccine over fear of blood clots and brain haemorrhage.
They were later joined by Spain, Portugal, Slovenia and Latvia, in spite of the World Health Organisation (WHO) insisting that the vaccine is safe to use. Apart from Europe, Indonesia also suspended the rollout.
The suspensions of vaccine rollout have been a blow to the global immunisation campaign that was aimed at ending the pandemic.
What WHO Says:
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that they don’t want people to panic and would recommend countries to continue vaccinating with AstraZeneca.
Referring to the cases where recipients developed blood clots, she added, "So far, we do not find an association between these events and the vaccine."
More than 11 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been rolled out by the UK to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Millions of people in several countries have taken the vaccine without any major side effects.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is holding a special meeting on Thursday, reiterated the need to remain calm and added that it was better to get the vaccine than not.
"The benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing Covid-19, with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death, outweigh the risks of side effects," the agency said in a statement Monday, 15 March.
(With inputs from AFP)
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