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(Adds Finland halts AstraZeneca vaccination)
By Nikolaj Skydsgaard and Essi Lehto
COPENHAGEN, March 19 (Reuters) - Denmark, Sweden and Norway
said on Friday they needed more time to decide whether to use
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine while Finland joined them in
putting the shots on hold, even though the EU drug watchdog said
the benefits outweighed any risks.
"We need time to get to the bottom of this," Soren Brostrom,
head of the Danish Health Authority, told reporters on Friday.
Several European countries last week suspended use of the
vaccine following reports of rare instances of blood clots in
some people who had been vaccinated.
On Friday nearly a dozen of them resumed inoculations on the
EMA's recommendation.
"This does not change the fact that, on the basis of a
precautionary principle, we are continuing our suspension,
because we need to understand this better, so that we can say
with certainty that we recommend this vaccine," Brostrom said.
Finland, which had not previously suspended the vaccine,
announced it would halt the use of the AstraZeneca shot while
investigating two suspected cases of blood clots.
"After doing the investigation we can better inform people
about the risk associated with the vaccine if there is one,"
said Taneli Puumalainen, chief physician at the Finnish
Institute for Health and Welfare.
Health authorities in all four Nordic countries said they
planned to decide on the future use of the AstraZeneca vaccine
next week.
Norway has so far reported five cases in which recipients of
the vaccine were later admitted to hospital with a combination
of blood clots, bleedings and low platelets, one of whom has
died.
A sixth person, who also got the vaccine, has died from
brain a haemorrhage in combination with a low count of
platelets.
"These cases are rare, but very serious. We can not rule out
that these cases may be linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine," the
Norwegian Medicines Agency said.
Sweden is also looking into isolated cases of blood clots
and coagulatory issues among people who took the vaccine,
including two deaths, though authorities have said any possible
link to the inoculations remains uncertain.
"We know already that we have quite a few people that have
begun to be hesitant about the vaccine," Chief Epidemiologist
Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden's no-lockdown pandemic
strategy, told public service broadcaster SVT.
"That means it is hugely important that we are able to issue
clear communications about how and why we continue to use (the
AstraZeneca vaccine)."
Sweden, Finland and Norway have seen a rapid rise in
COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. Denmark has seen numbers fall
and is gradually reopening society.
AstraZeneca said on Sunday a review of safety data of more
than 17 million people vaccinated in the United Kingdom and
European Union with its vaccine had shown no evidence of an
increased risk of blood clots.
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Nikolaj Skydsgaard in
Copenhagen, Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Essi Lehto in Helsinki and
Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Editing by Alison Williams, Emelia
Sithole-Matarise and Nick Macfie)
