Coronavirus: Alarm at German AstraZeneca pause as cases spike
German leaders have postponed a summit on extending the vaccine rollout as they await fuller confirmation that the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab is safe to use.
Germany is among variety of nations that have halted its use over unproven reports that it causes blood clots, but Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was hopeful it might be used again.
The EU regulator has again insisted the drug's benefits outweigh any risks.
The German decision has been criticised by some politicians and doctors.
Emer Cooke, executive of the ecu Medicines Agency, said the EMA was still "firmly convinced" of the advantages of the AstraZeneca drug, and she or he acknowledged that blood clots highlighted by some countries were relatively common within the general population. the most question was whether it had been a true side-effect of the vaccine or a coincidence, she said.
The agency's safety committee will further review the newest evidence and report back on Thursday. Experts from the planet Health Organization (WHO) were also meeting on Tuesday but spokesman Christian Lindmeier stressed there was "no evidence" that the incidents were linked to the vaccine.
What reaction has there been in Germany?
Germany has thus far used 1.6 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, considered second only to the Pfizer-BioNTech drug in importance to the national rollout.
The planned meeting of federal and state leaders will now happen after the EMA decision, and that they are expected to back the involvement of a national network of family doctors' surgeries from April, which officials hope will then enable 20 million vaccinations per month.
German infections are growing "exponentially", with cases up by 20% within the past week, an expert from the RKI public health agency warned on Tuesday.
There are seven cases of cerebral blood clots (cerebral sinus phlebothrombosis , which is extremely rare) in recently vaccinated people in Germany, three of them fatal.
The government's decision to suspend the vaccine on Monday was criticised by Karl Lauterbach, an epidemiologist and health spokesman for the centre-left Social Democrats, who said while it had been justifiable, it had been also political.
"I would even now get vaccinated with the AstraZeneca. supported the incidents we now know, the advantages of vaccination significantly outweigh the risks, particularly for the elderly," he told Deutschlandfunk radio.
A Free Democrat spokeswoman said the choice had set back the whole vaccination rollout. Greens health expert Janosch Dahmen argued that authorities could have provided detailed information about "manageable risk" and continued using the drug.
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