Britain’s Boris Johnson steps in after EU countries halt use of AstraZeneca

After many EU countries halted the use of AstraZeneca vaccine against coronavirus, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended the vaccine on Tuesday. The vaccination drive has been halted by few EU countries over blood clot fears.

EU countries, including Germany, Italy and France, joined others in suspending the vaccine on Monday. This step is been seen as a big blow to the immunisation programme against the COVID-19 disease, which has infected and killed millions of people across the globe.  

The World Health Organization, AstraZeneca and Europe Medicine’s watchdog have, however, insisted that the jab is safe and there is no link of the vaccine with reported blood clots.

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The British PM on Tuesday reiterated that the shot is safe and not harmful. Johnson said, “That vaccine is safe and works extremely well,” reports the Times newspaper. He added that the vaccine is being made in multiple places such as the UK, the US and India and is being used around the world.

Several cases of blood clots or brain haemorrhages have been reported amidst the growing fear over the safety of AstraZeneca vaccine. A number of people have reported blood clots after getting vaccinated from the UK vaccine, and a few have died too. 

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AstraZeneca and experts from the UK have denied the claims saying that there are no evidence of clots being caused by the jab or that a big number of blood clot cases have been reported.

The UK vaccine has been developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in Britain, where over 11 million doses have been administered without major health problems reported.

Johnson told the media on Monday that Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products regulator (MHRA) is one of the most experienced regulators in the world and even they see no solid reason to halt the vaccination drive.

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He added that, “They believe that they are highly effective in driving down not just hospitalisation but also serious disease and mortality. We continue to be very confident about the programme and it’s great to see it being rolled out at such speed across the UK,” as per the media reports.