OTTAWA – According to Health Canada’s Chief Medical Advisor, no scientific explanation has linked the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to blood clots.
However, wanting to be reassuring, Dr. Supriya Sharma said that Health Canada’s tolerance level for the unintended effects of a vaccine “is really low”. The organization will not hesitate to suspend its use if necessary.
She points out that researchers have yet to prove that the Oxford-AstraZenera vaccine has caused blood clots in some patients in Europe.
“There isn’t a good biological explanation why a vaccine like this,” injected into a muscle, would cause this kind of adverse event, Sharma said in an interview with the Canadian Press.
Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Bulgaria are among a dozen European countries that have suspended all or part of the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. None of them have revealed a proven connection, but they all prefer to be very cautious while waiting for a fuller examination.
Many other countries, including Germany, France, Poland, Nigeria, the UK and Canada, are sticking to AstraZeneca injections, citing the lack of any evidence to show a link.
The vaccine has been approved in 74 countries and by the World Health Organization. No less than 16 million doses have been administered in the UK and Europe alone.
Canada approved it on February 26. The first 500,000 doses were distributed this week to the provinces.
Lucilia Pato, who received her first dose on Friday morning, said the decision by some countries to forgo the AstraZeneca vaccine had made her reluctant to be vaccinated at first
“I was [inquiète] when I heard about it on Thursday, but this morning I heard some positive things about it, so you know what, I was ready to give it a go, ”she said.
The European Medicines Agency, which regulates new medicines for the European Union, announced Thursday that it is not suspending its authorization for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Dr. Sharma says it’s normal to want to look at any unforeseen effects of a new drug or vaccine.
“Once these vaccines are used by millions of people, these things will happen,” she says. We expect things to pop up and that’s why we have these vigilance systems to be able to detect them. ”
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