Other vaccine having blood clot issues: Denmark becomes first European country to drop AstraZeneca vaccine

Denmark on Wednesday announced that it will no longer be administering AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine amid concerns on links to rare blood clots, making it the first European country to make its suspension permanent.

Danish Health Authority head Soren Brostrom said in a statement that investigations into the blood clots among some individuals who received the AstraZeneca shot “showed real and serious side effects.”

“Based on an overall consideration, we have therefore chosen to continue the vaccination program for all target groups without this vaccine,” Brostrom said Wednesday, according to Reuters.

Denmark was the first in a wave of countries to announce a suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine in March over concerns of a potential connection between the inoculation and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), a brain blood clot.

While a safety committee of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said last week that a “possible link” exists between the vaccine and blood clots, it argued that the benefits of the inoculation to protect against COVID-19 outweigh the risks.