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* Ireland hopes suspension may only be for a few days
* Reports in Norway more serious than elsewhere - officials
* AstraZeneca used to vaccinate one-in-five Irish recipients
(Adds Ireland's COVID-19 cases, deaths)
By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN, March 14 (Reuters) - Ireland temporarily suspended
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine "out of an abundance of
caution" on Sunday, citing reports from the Norwegian Medicines
Agency regarding a cluster of serious blood clotting in some
recipients there.
Three health workers in Norway who had recently received the
AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were being treated in hospital for
bleeding, blood clots and a low count of blood platelets, its
health authorities said on Saturday.
Ireland's National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC)
recommended the temporary deferral pending the receipt of more
information from European regulators in the coming days.
Authorities in Denmark, Norway and Iceland have suspended
the use of the vaccine over clotting issues, while Austria
stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca shots last week while
investigating a death from coagulation disorders.
EMA has said there is no indication that the events were
caused by the vaccination, a view that was echoed by the World
Health Organisation on Friday. AstraZeneca also said it had
found no evidence of increased risk of deep-vein thrombosis.
Irish authorities received some reports of clotting similar
to those seen in Europe last week but nothing as serious as the
cases in Norway, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Ronan Glynn said.
Glynn said the fact that the Norwegian cases related to a
cluster of four unusual clotting events involving the brain in
30 to 40 year-olds raised the higher level of concern.
He said that one of the reasons Ireland acted now was that
it was due to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine to people of a
similar age with serious underlying conditions next week.
"It may be nothing, we may be overreacting and I sincerely
hope that in a week's time that we will have been accused of
being overly-cautious," Glynn told national broadcaster RTE.
"Hopefully we will have data to reassure us in a few short
days and we will be back up and running with this."
AstraZeneca vaccinations make up 20% of the 590,000 shots
administered among Ireland's 4.9 million population, mainly to
healthcare workers after its use was not initially recommended
for those over 70 and the firm supplied far fewer vaccines to
the European Union than agreed.
There have been 4,534 COVID-19-related deaths in Ireland.
The number of cases per 100,000 people in the past 14 days fell
to 155 from a high of over 1,500 in January, although officials
are concerned over a slight rise in new cases in recent days.
Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill also
raised concerns over the suspension of AstraZeneca elsewhere.
The region's assistant director of public health, Stephen
Bergin, said the vaccine's rollout will continue.
Like the rest of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland is
much further ahead in its programme and has inoculated more than
40% of the adult population, relying heavily on AstraZeneca's
vaccine.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, editing by Bernadette Baum and
Louise Heavens)
