(Adds regional suspension of vaccine)
MADRID, March 12 (Reuters) - Spanish health services have
already distributed all the doses from a batch of AstraZeneca's
COVID-19 vaccine that some countries suspect may cause
severe side effects, Health Minister Carolina Darias said on
Friday.
Several Nordic countries suspended use of the AstraZeneca
shot on Thursday following reports of the formation of blood
clots in some people who had been vaccinated.
"This batch was already supplied and distributed," Darias
said on Spanish RNE radio station on Friday, adding the
frequency of blood clots among vaccinated people was no higher
than among the general population.
She said the country's monitoring system to follow up on
people after vaccination had only detected light side effects
such as headaches, dizziness and intestinal troubles.
A police labour union said on Friday the batch in question
was mainly used to inoculate police officers, and it asked the
Health Ministry to closely follow the health of the officers who
got the shots.
Austria earlier stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca shots
while it investigated a death from a clotting disorder and a
case of pulmonary embolism.
Europe's EMA medicines regulator has backed the drug and
said the benefits outweigh the risks. The World Health
Organization is looking into the issue but said there was no
reason not to use it.
Darias said Spain would continue giving out the shot until
it received further guidance from the EMA but some regional
authorities were more cautious.
The central Castille and Leon region suspended its use
outright, while officials in Andalusia said they would hold off
on administering some 1,200 doses left over from the suspect
batch.
Neither region has detected any severe adverse effects.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro, Emma Pinedo and Nathan Allen;
Editing by Hugh Lawson and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)