LONDON: Defending the safety of the
AstraZeneca
vaccine over reports on blood clot fears, Prime Minister
Boris Johnson on Tuesday "the vaccine is safe and works extremely well."
Echoed assurances that the jab was not harmful in The Times newspaper, the British leader said, "It is being made in multiple places from India to the US, as well as
Britain
, and it is being used around the world."
Nearly a dozen countries including Germany, France and Italy have all temporarily suspended their use of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine after reports last week that some people in Denmark and Norway who got a dose developed blood clots.
Fears have grown in some countries over the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine after several cases of blood clots or brain haemorrhages in people after receiving the inoculation, with a small number of deaths reported.
In Britain, where 11 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been administered - more than any other country - there have been reports of about 11 people who developed blood clots after getting a shot. None were proven to have been caused by the vaccine.
However, the World Health Organization, AstraZeneca, and the European Medicines Agency have insisted the shot is safe, and that there is no link between it and reported blood clots.
AstraZeneca and medical experts in Britain have said there is no evidence of clots being caused by the jab or that they are occurring in greater numbers or frequency than in the general population.
On Monday,
Johnson told reporters that Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is "one of the toughest and most experienced regulators in the world".
Confident about the speed of the rollout in the UK, Johnson said, "they see no reason to discontinue the vaccination programme... for either of the vaccines that we're currently using."
"They believe that they are highly effective in driving down not just hospitalisation but also serious disease and mortality.
(With agency inputs)