* Thailand to proceed with AztraZeneca shot, Indonesia holds
back
* Denmark and Netherlands give more details of side-effects
* Germany says it will continue using it, discuss this week
* AstraZeneca says large review shows no increased risk
By Panarat Thepgumpanat and Andreas Rinke
BANGKOK/BELIN, March 15 (Reuters) - Thailand announced plans
on Monday to go ahead with AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine and
Germany said it would continue to administer the shot despite
other countries suspending its use over safety fears.
Denmark and Norway have reported cases of bleeding, blood
clots and a low platelet count, prompting Ireland and the
Netherlands on Sunday to join them in announcing suspensions. On
Monday Indonesia said it would also delay giving the vaccine.
Iceland had earlier suspended its use while Austria and
Italy's Piedmont region have stopped using particular batches.
AstraZeneca Plc said on Sunday it had conducted a
review covering more than 17 million people vaccinated in the
European Union and the UK which had shown no evidence of an
increased risk of blood clots.
Thailand became the first country outside Europe to delay
rolling out the vaccine on Friday, when its political leaders
were due to have the first shots, but the government said on
Monday they would receive the AstraZeneca vaccine on Tuesday.
Indonesia, however, said it would delay administering the
vaccine due to the reports of blood clots among some recipients
in Europe and would await a review from the World Health
Organization (WHO).
On Friday the WHO said there was no indication that the
events were caused by the vaccination, a view earlier expressed
by the European Medicines Agency.
AstraZeneca's shot was the first and cheapest to be
developed and launched at volume since the coronavirus was first
identified in central China at the end of 2019 and is set to be
the mainstay of vaccination programmes in much of the developing
world.
The handful of reported side-effects in Europe have upset
vaccination programmes already under pressure over slow rollouts
and vaccine scepticism in some countries.
The Netherlands said on Monday it had seen 10 cases of
noteworthy adverse side-effects from the AstraZeneca vaccine,
hours after the government put its vaccination programme on hold
following reports of possible side-effects in other countries.
Denmark reported "highly unusual" symptoms in a 60-year-old
citizen who died from a blood clot after receiving the vaccine,
the same phrase used on Saturday by Norway about three people
under the age of 50 it said were being treated in hospital.
"It was an unusual course of illness around the death that
made the Danish Medicines Agency react," the agency said in a
statement late on Sunday.
In Germany, the question marks over the vaccine caused a
political row, with the leader of the Bavarian Christian Social
Union (CSU), Markus Soeder, saying the country needed clear
guidance from its own experts.
Noting that some other European Union countries had stopped
using the vaccine, Soeder told a news conference: "That's why
there has to be an extra clear statement in Germany: is the
vaccine good or bad?"
The health ministry said the country was continuing to use
the AstraZeneca vaccine according to the European Medicines
Agency's guidelines.
The reports of potential safety risks are taken seriously
and data is examined constantly, a ministry spokesman told
Reuters. Further proceedings would be discussed with the
European and the national vaccine regulators this week, he said.
(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat in BANKOK and Andreas Rinke
and Paul Carrel in BERLIN, Toby Sterling in AMSTERDAM, Jacob
Gronholt-Pedersen in COPENHAGEN and Stanley Widianto in JAKARTA;
writing by Philippa Fletcher; editing by Nick Macfie)