EU regulator declares AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine safe and effective

The European Union’s medicines regulator has concluded that the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is safe to use after several EU countries suspended their rollouts following reports that it could be linked to blood clots.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA)’s executive directorEmer Cooke said the agency had “come to a clear scientific conclusion: this is a safe and effective vaccine.”Cooke said the group did not find that the vaccine causes clotting, though it could not rule out definitively a link to a rare blood clotting disorder, of which seven cases have been reported out of several million doses given.

She said the benefits of using the vaccine outweighed the risk.The committee “concluded that the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of thromboembolic events, or blood clots,” Cooke said.

The agency’s decision comes after more than a dozen European countries halted their use of the vaccine, citing reports of a handful of patients across Europe who developed clotting after being inoculated.