UPDATED: Spain to keep using AstraZeneca vaccine, no blood clot cases reported
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Spain has not registered any cases of blood clots related to AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine so far and will continue administering the shots, Health Minister Carolina Darias said on Thursday.
She said she had been informed of cases of blood clots among recently vaccinated people in Austria, but added that “so far, no causal relation between the vaccine and the blood clot events has been established”, and the European regulator EMA was evaluating the situation.
Danish health authorities on Thursday temporarily stopped using the COVID-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca after several cases of blood clots.
Six countries – Denmark, Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia – have now suspended its use to allow time for the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) to conduct an investigation.
The Austrian case stemmed from AstraZeneca batch labelled ABV5300 comprised one million doses and had been delivered to 17 EU countries.
In all according to the EMA, batch number ABV5300 was distributed to to 17 EU countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden.
Malta’s government, in a statement (see further below) said that there were no adverse effects have been reported in Malta from a batch of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. The Ministry of Health said on Thursday that the Malta consignment of the ABV5300 batch was used up several weeks ago.
