Health Minister Jan Blatný said he saw no reason to halt AstraZeneca vaccinations in the wake of a blood clot scare which has made several European states suspend the use of AstraZeneca pending an investigation by the European Medicines Agency.
Mr. Blatný said that no causal link between the vaccine and the blood clot events had been established to date and the Czech Institute for Drug Control considered the vaccine to be safe.
He said no significant problems had been reported in this country in connection with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The Czech Republic currently has three vaccines at its disposal: Pfiser/BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Moderna.
Czech Health Minister Jan Blatný on Monday defended the decision to continue vaccinating with AstraZeneca in the face of suspensions across Europe. The health minister, who has been stressing the need to push ahead with vaccinations in view of the fast spread of the epidemic, argued that no causal link between the vaccine and blood clot problems had been established to date and the Czech Institute for Drug Control considers the vaccine safe.
What started out as isolated concerns regarding a given batch of AstraZeneca acquired new proportions in the past 24 hours as Germany, Italy, France and Spain joined four other European states in their decision to suspend the use of AstraZeneca pending a decision by the European Medicines Agency on whether the new information that has emerged will affect the authorization of the vaccine.