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PARIS, March 11 (Reuters) - French health authorities see no
reason to suspend the use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccinations,
despite suspensions in some other European countries, French
Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Thursday.
Health authorities in Denmark, Norway and Iceland on
Thursday suspended the use of AstraZeneca's shot
following reports of the formation of blood clots in some people
who had been vaccinated.
Veran said the French drug safety agency, in line with its
European Union counterpart, had advised that there was no reason
to suspend injections with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"The benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine are considered
higher than the risks at this point," Veran said at the
government's weekly coronavirus briefing.
He said investigations were continuing in France and abroad
and added that Britain - which has vaccinated millions with the
AstraZeneca shot - advised continuing with it and had not noted
large-scale excess risk related to the vaccine.
Veran, who is a neurologist, said that for about five
million Europeans vaccinated with AstraZeneca, only about 30
people have experienced blood coagulation problems, which is in
line with the number of cases one would expect for five million
people who had not been vaccinated.
"We are looking systematically at each declared case of
undesired serious side-effects ... each case is analysed for a
link of causality with the vaccination, which so far has not
been formally identified," Veran said.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq and Benoit Van Overstraeten;
Editing by Giles Elgood)
