Canadian health authorities recommended on Monday to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 for people under 55 years of age due to some cases of adverse reactions in Europe.
Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) adopted that measure as a “precaution” after about 500,000 doses have been administered in the country.
The Canadian Ministry of Health said that so far there have been no cases of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia (decrease in the number of platelets in the blood) in the country, although it has received information from other cases apart from those produced in Europe.
Given this information, Canada will ask the vaccine manufacturers to “carry out a detailed assessment of the benefits and risks of the vaccine by age and sex in the Canadian context.”
The health authorities indicated that the data provided by the pharmaceutical companies “will determine if additional regulatory actions are necessary.”
Canada is receiving two versions of the vaccine, one produced by the Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca and the other by the Serum Institute of India.
Two weeks ago, following reports of some side effects, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated at a press conference that the AstraZeneca vaccine was “safe and effective.”
Precisely Canada plans to receive tomorrow, Tuesday, 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca serum from the US, where health authorities have not yet approved the use of this drug for emergency use.
The danger is that media and citizen pressure will make countries wait a bit to advance with the first stage of vaccination.
Canada gave the green light to AstraZeneca’s serum in February, after Pfizer and Moderna reported reducing their shipments to the North American country due to production problems.
The stoppage in the reception of vaccines caused the suspension of the immunization campaign in the country and generated criticism of the Trudeau government.
Despite the fact that Canada is the country in the world that has purchased the most doses of COVID-19 vaccines per capita, more than 400 million for a population of around 38 million, the vaccination campaign is further behind than other countries.
The latest figures indicate that 11.78% of the Canadian population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines, which places Canada at number 36 in the world ranking.
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