DUBLIN: Ireland suspended the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on Sunday, following reports of blood clots in adults who received the shot in Norway.
"The administration of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca is temporarily deferred from this morning, Sunday 14th March," a health ministry spokesman told AFP.
The move came after Ireland’s National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) recommended suspending the AstraZeneca rollout "on the precautionary principal" after "a report from the Norwegian Medicines Agency of four new reports of serious blood clotting events in adults after vaccination".
"It has not been concluded that there is any link" between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the blood clot cases and action has been taken "pending receipt of further information", Ireland’s deputy chief medical officer Ronan Glynn said in a statement.
The NIAC is due to meet on Sunday morning and to issue a further statement on the matter. Some 570,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered in Ireland to date, according to government data last updated on Wednesday.
A total of 109,000 of those doses have been manufactured by the Anglo-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca. An AstraZeneca spokesman said the "an analysis of our safety data that covers reported cases from more than 17 million doses of vaccine administered has shown no evidence of an increased risk" in blood clot conditions.
"In fact, the reported numbers of these types of events for Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca are lower than the number that would have occurred naturally in the unvaccinated population," a statement added.
Ireland -- a nation of five million -- has suffered 4,534 deaths from the coronavirus according to latest official figures. The Republic is currently in the midst of its third lockdown after suffering a surge of cases which saw it become the world’s most infectious nation in early January.
The government is already under pressure from opposition lawmakers over a drought in vaccine supply amid a sluggish nationwide rollout tethered to the EU jabs programme. On Thursday health minister Stephen Donnelly said AstraZeneca is "repeatedly changing its delivery schedules, often at the last minute, and revising down the volumes it will deliver".
"It is deeply frustrating for everybody, with so many people looking to get vaccinated as quickly as possible," he told lawmakers in Ireland’s Dail lower house of parliament.Meanwhile, Italy’s health minister said on Sunday the government hoped new coronavirus restrictions imposed on three quarters of the country would allow a relaxation of measures in the second half of spring.
Roberto Speranza comments in Sunday’s La Repubblica newspaper came on the eve of restrictions taking effect from Monday and running until April 6, which would cover the crucial Easter holiday period.
"The implementation of more stringent measures and the gradual increase in the number of people vaccinated make us think we will have improving figures by the second half of spring already," he said.
The new factor had been the recent mutations of the original virus, particularly the one identified in England, which now accounted for more than half the cases. But he added: "Each dose of vaccine injected is a step in the direction of the way out of the crisis."
And although several countries have suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine because of concerns over side-effects, Speranza expressed his confidence in Italian and European health authorities, both of which say it is safe to use.
Schools, restaurants, shops and museums will close across most of Italy on Monday, a year after it became the first European country to face a major outbreak. Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Friday the surge in infections was fuelled by the new, more contagious variants.
Most regions -- including those containing Rome and Milan -- become high-risk red zones, with all residents told to stay home except for work, health or other essential reasons. The restrictions cover 48 million people and will last until Easter -- then during the Easter weekend of April 3-5, the whole of Italy will become a red zone. Italy has to date suffered more than 101,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
In a latest development France’s government said on Sunday it plans to evacuate around 100 Covid-19 patients from intensive care units in the Paris region this week as hospitals struggle to keep up with a surge in cases.
With the transfers, officials hope to avoid a new lockdown for the roughly 12 million people in and around the capital as they race to step up a vaccination drive that got off to a slow start.
"By the end of this week, probably around 100 patients will have been evacuated from the Ile-de-France region" encompassing Paris, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said at Orly airport, where two patients -- aged 33 and 70 -- were airlifted to the southwestern city of Bordeaux.
Later this week, two specially equipped trains will transfer "several dozens of patients to regions that today are under less strain" from the pandemic, Attal added. Asked if Paris would avoid a new lockdown, Attal said "we are doing everything we can to not have to take more difficult, more restrictive measures."
However, "we will always take whatever decisions are necessary." The government has already ordered weekend shutdowns for the northern Pas-de-Calais region -- where transfers of Covid patients to less crowded hospitals began earlier this month -- and in the Mediterranean region surrounding Nice. Of the nearly 4,100 Covid patients currently in intensive care nationwide, around 1,100 are in Paris-area hospitals.
A 6 pm curfew remains in place across France and restaurants, cafes, cinemas, theatres and large shopping centres have been shut, but the average daily number of new Covid cases has continued to climb steadily in recent weeks.