ATHENS, April 9 (Reuters) - Greece will limit use of the
AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to people above age 30
following rare cases of blood clots, its national vaccinations
committee said on Friday, falling into line with other European
countries.
Europe's medicines regulator said this week it found rare
cases of blood clots among some adult recipients of the shot,
although the vaccine's advantages still outweighed its risks.
"The National Vaccination Committee, after evaluating all
available data, recommends the continuation of the vaccination
programme with all available vaccines, including the AstraZeneca
vaccine, to people aged 30 and over," the committee said in a
statement.
The risk of a serious illness and death from COVID-19
"overwhelmingly" outweighed the risk of a possible blood clot
following vaccination, especially for ages over 30, it said.
Greece has reported 288,230 cases of COVID-19 and a total of
8,680 deaths. It has administered 378,997 doses of the
AstraZeneca vaccine so far and ordered another 1.35 million
doses.
It has also used the Pfizer and Moderna
COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate more than 2 million people.
Vaccination programmes have stuttered in Europe and
elsewhere in the last month, since a very few mostly young
recipients of the AstraZeneca shot were found to have suffered
extremely unusual blood clots, leading some countries to suspend
its use as a precaution or restrict it to people above a certain
age.
Germany was the first European country to recommend that
people under 60 who have had a first AstraZeneca shot should
receive a different product for their second dose.
(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Astrazeneca (AZN)
