Denmark temporarily suspends COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca

COPENHAGEN - Use of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford has been suspended in Denmark for 14 days due to fears of serious adverse reactions, according to the Danish Health Authority on Thursday morning.

The Danish Medicines Agency, under the Danish Health Authority, has chosen to pause vaccinations with the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca, the authority said in a website statement, citing severe cases of blood clots that have been reported.

The move was based on "the concerns raised by the drug authorities" and "a precautionary principle", the statement said.

The statement said that while the European Medicines Agency had launched an investigation into the AstraZeneca vaccine, and one report relates to a death in Denmark, the authority is unable to conclude that a link exists between the vaccine and cases of blood clots.

A total of 560,656 people have been vaccinated in Denmark, of which 25.3 percent were vaccinated with AstraZeneca, 4 percent with Moderna and 70.7 percent with Pfizer-BioNTech, according to vaccination monitoring statistics provided by the Statens Serum Institut, which were last updated on March 9.