All the news on the Astrazeneca anti Covid vaccine
Suspensions and reassurances on the Astrazeneca vaccine. What happened and what the institutions say
Reassurances about the safety of the Astrazeneca vaccine follow one another. For Ema and the World Health Organization, the drug, developed by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Italian Irbm, is safe and no connection can be proven with the adverse reactions reported.
But Romania and Bulgaria join the countries that suspend the administration of a batch ( like Italy ) or the whole vaccine. Let's go step by step.
THE ITALIAN STOP
Let's start from Italy. After the reporting of some serious adverse reactions, Italy suspended batch ABV2856. Aifa, "following the reporting of some serious adverse events, concurrently with the administration of doses belonging to the ABV2856 lot of the AstraZeneca anti Covid-19 vaccine, decided as a precaution to issue a ban on the use of this lot on throughout the national territory ”, reads the website of the Medicines Agency .
Some prosecutors, writes the Corriere delle Sera , are working to understand the reasons for five deaths after vaccination. The 249,600 doses will remain in place until the investigation is completed.
ROMANIA SUSPENDS ASTRAZENECA VACCINE LOT
Romania also follows Italy and blocks the administration of batch ABV2856. These are 4,257 still not inoculated, explains the head of the vaccination campaign, Valeriu Gheorghita, which will be replaced by those of other batches, reports Ansa .
The prime minister, Florin Citu, said that “the vaccination campaign must continue with all types of vaccine, monitoring any adverse effects. Nothing has changed, I trust the specialists "
THE SUSPENDED BATCH IN AUSTRIA, LATVIA, ESTONIA, LUXEMBOURG AND LITHUANIA
The administration of a different batch (ABV5300) was suspended, however, in recent days in Austria , where a woman died after the first dose. As a precaution, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Latvia have also blocked the use of the lot.
THE WITHDRAWAL OF DENMARK
And also in recent days, the Astrazeneca vaccine has been withdrawn entirely in Denmark , due to "reports of serious cases of blood clots in people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine," he explained in a statement. Danish health authority.
The Danish decision was emulated by Iceland and Norway.
BULGARIA SUSPENDS VACCINE
Bulgaria, where Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has ordered the withdrawal of the vaccine, is making the same choice in these hours, pending that "the European Medicines Agency will not have dispelled any doubts about its safety with a written declaration".
WHAT DO FRANCE, GERMANY, SPAIN AND UK DO
The vaccination campaign continues, also with Astrazeneca, in France, Spain and Germany. Britain, where 11 million doses have been injected, considers AstraZeneca's vaccine "safe and effective".
WHO'S INTERVENTION
The World Health Organization continues to consider the vaccine safe and effective.
"We should continue to use the AstraZeneca vaccine," WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said at a press conference in Geneva. “There is no reason not to use it”.
EMA: NO PROVEN CORRELATION
Even the EMA believes that, at the moment, there is no correlation between vaccine and deaths.
“The information available so far indicates that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than that observed in the general population. Until March 9, 2021, 22 cases of thromboembolic events have been reported in 3 million people vaccinated with AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine in the European Union ”, explains the European Medicines Agency.
FARMINDUSTRIA: WE HAVE STRICT CONTROLS
It is an alarm, that of the suspension, which should reassure citizens, however, for the president of Farmindustria, Massimo Scaccabarozzi. “Nobody can say if there are connections but I say that people from these things must be even more calm because it means that the controls are there. We have control systems that are rigid and rigorous at all stages, from research, to production, to post administration, ”Scaccabarozzi told Mattino Cinque .
"We have a worldwide, European, Italian pharmacovigilance system that works very well, in fact in 24 hours any case that happens must be reported and this is the demonstration that precautions are taken".
HOW PHARMACOVIGILANCE WORKS
With drugs, added Scaccabarozzi, it works that "as soon as there is a report, everything stops, checks are carried out, it is necessary to check whether this case is due to the vaccine or not and then it can be restarted or not depending on the investigations that Are made. People don't know this but on every drug, even the most common ones, there is a sticker that allows you to track the drug at any time. So when we distribute a drug, we and the state know exactly where it is because there is this control system. So when there is a case in an obviously preventive manner, the lot is blocked and we go and see ”.
SCACCABAROZZI (FARMINDUSTRIA): BEWARE OF PURCHASES ON DARK WEB
And this is why the president of Farmindustria warns against drugs purchased on the dark web or similar circuits: "I often hear that vaccines or drugs are found outside the official circuits, this is not to be done because we have absolutely no the guarantee that the authorities have checked them and that the companies have obviously prepared everything that must be done for quality ".
PREGLIASCO: THIS IS A USUAL SITUATION
The virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco also intervenes on the subject, arguing, to FanPage.it , that the vaccine is "effective" and that "the data show no increase in risk".
“It is not a usual but frequent situation with drugs, with vaccines, and it refers to the Phase 4 pharmacovigilance of each drug in use. The particular for this type of vaccines, given the importance, the attention, and that there is certainly also a greater share of reports than the norm ". Signals that, he says, “it is good that there are, when there is a correlation we say temporal. The EMA and the national agencies are doing well to clarify this aspect. It is clear that such a communication normally remains only in the archives of the Aifa website and reaches us interested in order to proceed. But here it had a rebound effect I fear negative ”.
PREGLIASCO: IT IS NOT SERIES B VACCINE
“AstraZeneca's vaccine narrative made it look like a 'Series B' vaccine, which is not true. The usage data in Great Britain also shows superior effectiveness in the field ”, adds Pregliasco.
“Ema and other regulatory bodies report that on all vaccinations done to date there have been 40 deaths, considering Pfizer and Moderna, and to date all these have not been related to vaccinations. On AstraZeneca Ema indicates about thirty cases out of 5 million vaccinations in Europe, also unrelated. It is an incidence absolutely comparable to that of the general population, so all this does not show an increase in risk ”.
CHRISANTS: NO CORRELATION
The director of the microbiology laboratory of the University of Padua, Andrea Crisanti, is also of the same opinion, speaking to 24Mattino on Radio 24 , asking for a "rigorous and transparent" investigation, underlining that "at the moment no deviation attributable to the AstraZeneca vaccine" .
"When millions of people are vaccinated, a temporal but not necessarily causal relationship can be established between the vaccination act and an unfavorable event, however, it is necessary to reassure people that thanks to all the checks and procedures that have been put in place before approving the vaccine we can retrospectively trace the entire history of every single vaccine vial, a trace that allows us to verify what happened ”, added Crisanti.
PURPLE: RIGHT TO SUSPEND, BUT NOT ALARMING DATA
Also for the immunologist Antonella Viola the suspension of the administration of the ABV2856 batch of Astrazeneca is right, but underlines on Twitter: "the data again tell us that 30 cases out of 5 million administrations are a frequency not far from what happens in subjects who they received placebo instead of the vaccine ”.
Speaking at Otto e mezzo , La7 program conducted by Lilli Gruber, the immunologist Viola had always said that Aifa should have completely suspended the administration until certain data were obtained.
Just the withdrawal of the AZ lot ABV2856 and the request for clarifications and data. But beware that, again the data, tell us that 30 cases out of 5 million administrations are a frequency not far from what happens in subjects who have received placebo instead of the vaccine.
– antonella viola (@ antonellaviol17) March 12, 2021
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/tutte-le-novita-sul-vaccino-astrazeneca/ on Fri, 12 Mar 2021 15:43:42 +0000.