[News] WHO says there is no reason to stop vaccinating against COVID-19 with AstraZeneca

[#Steeven.™]

Denmark, Iceland and Norway announced on Thursday the suspension of injections of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The WHO declared this Friday that "there is no reason not to use" the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine, after the suspension of its application as a precautionary measure in several European countries.

"Yes, we should continue to use the AstraZeneca vaccine," "there is no reason not to use it," said Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization on Friday at a UN news point in Geneva.

Denmark, Iceland and Norway announced on Thursday the suspension of injections of the AstraZeneca vaccine, invoking the "precautionary" principle. Bulgaria did the same on Friday.

The Danish national health agency, the first to announce the decision, spoke of a precautionary measure against "severe cases of blood clots in vaccinated people", although "at the moment" a causal relationship has not been established.

Earlier this week, Austria stopped administering a batch of those vaccines after a 49-year-old nurse died of "severe bleeding disorders" days after being vaccinated.

The Anglo-Swedish laboratory and the British government reacted on Thursday to defend a "safe" and "effective" vaccine.

For her part, the WHO spokeswoman stressed that the organization's experts are studying the information on clots that, so far, no causal relationship had been established.

"Any security alert must be investigated," she stressed.

"We always have to make sure we look at all safety alerts when we distribute vaccines and we have to review them, but there is no indication not to use it," the spokeswoman added.