Europe’s medical regulator is set to give its verdict on Thursday on the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine, following a chaotic few weeks that has seen nations suspend its use over blood clot fears.
There are “a number of options” open to scientists at the European Medicines Agency (EMA), its chief said earlier this week, including suspending approval for the vaccine in the EU, with the bloc’s inoculation programme already scrambling for vaccines.
Despite more than a dozen countries pausing rollouts, the EMA says it has found “no indication” of a serious problem and that the number of post-jab blood clots is no higher than it is among the general, unvaccinated population.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday it was better to take the AstraZeneca vaccine than not — adding that it was looking into available data on the shot.
The furore around the vaccine has marred the global vaccine drive aimed at ending a pandemic that has killed more than 2.6 million people, and comes as several countries report jumps in new cases.
France recorded its highest daily caseload in nearly four months on Wednesday, with the authorities set to announce measures affecting 18 million people, including a possible weekend lockdown for Paris region.
“Let’s be clear, we’re in a third wave mostly down to the rise of this famous British variant,” French President Emmanuel Macron said, referring to the more-contagious variant first detected in the U.K.
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