Italy, Germany, France and Holland they add to the list of European countries that decide to suspend, as a purely precautionary measure and only in time to carry out new tests, the administration of the vaccine produced by the Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca. Already last week a dozen countries, starting with Denmark but also the Baltic and other Eastern countries, had opted for this choice, after the occurrence of some cases of blood clots and even death, whose correlation with the serum inoculation is however not established . The World Health Organization in fact, he announced that he is examining reports relating to the AstraZeneca vaccine while emphasizing that at the moment there is no evidence of a link among the incidents that occurred in some countries (including Italy, which had already suspended a batch after three deaths in Sicily) and the administration of the serum.
"To date there is no evidence that the recorded accidents are caused by the vaccine and it is instead important that vaccination campaigns continue to save lives and ward off serious forms", reiterated a WHO spokesman while there are reassurances about the safety of the vaccine by the Mhra (the British drug agency), which excludes links with cases of thrombosis (to the point that Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself has publicly intervened to reassure British citizens), and by the EMA, the European agency, which still once through the spokesman Marco Cavaleri he reiterated that “the balance between benefits and risks for AstraZeneca's anti-Covid vaccine is considered positive and we see no problem in continuing vaccinations using this vaccine”.
On the Italian front, not much after the announcement of Germany came that of Aifa, our drug agency which in turn blocked the AstraZeneca vaccine throughout the national territory. The news came after the Biella public prosecutor's office opened a manslaughter file after a suspicious death and "as a precaution" the Nas thus seized the lot already blocked in Piedmont throughout Italy, for a total of almost 400 thousand doses
As for the variants, it would also seem that AstraZeneca is less effective than other vaccines. In fact, the EMA has made it known that at the moment Moderna and Pfizer-Biontech have "excellent efficacy against the new variants of Covid", and thus also "the recently approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine" was found to be effective. More caution on AstraZeneca: “According to a small study of two thousand cases – Cavaleri always said -, the AstraZeneca vaccine was instead not effective against the South African variant“, but it will be necessary to wait for “larger studies” to verify its real effectiveness. Naturally it will be important to clarify as soon as possible – and the EMA has promised to do so by Thursday – how things really stand to reassure those who have already undergone and who will have to undergo the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Meanwhile, the Russian Sovereign Fund (RDIF) has announced that the manufacturing deals for Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19 have been achieved "with companies in Italy, Spain, France and Germany", pending its approval in the EU. “Further talks are currently underway to increase production in the EU. This will allow us to start supplying the European single market with Sputnik-V as soon as it is approved by the European Medicines Agency,” the head of the fund Kirill Dmitriev said in a statement.
