MANILA – The Department of Health (DOH) suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine. It adopted the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recommendation to temporarily stop giving the vaccine to individuals under the age of 60.
The move came after European drug regulators found a link between AstraZeneca’s jab and a few cases of unusual blood clots with low platelets count.
“We asked DOH kung mayroon pa pong natitirang AstraZeneca vaccine, siguro ay huwag muna nating gamitin sa mga people below 60 until we get clearer evidence and clearer guidance from the World Health Organization at sa ating mga experts,” FDA chairman Eric Domingo said Thursday.
On Wednesday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said cases of blood clot with low platelet count are “very rare” side effect of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. This was after it examined the 86 blood clotting cases, 18 of which were fatal, out of around 25 million people in Europe who received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Most of the cases were in women younger than 60.
In the country, however, there is still no report of blood clots from those given first dose of the shot, mostly medical frontliners.
The EMA’s findings were echoed by the World Health Organization’s vaccine experts saying a causal relationship between the vaccine and blood clots was “plausible but is not confirmed.”
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands were among the countries that do not recommend the use of said jab on younger people./PN
