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Austria stops administering AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine shots June

*Austrian Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein says ‘we will probably continue to do first shots with AstraZeneca until early June, and then that’s it… AstraZeneca will be discontinued’

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

Citing issues of ‘bad compliance among the population’, ‘delivery problems’, and rare cases of severe blood clots in consumers receiving the jabs in the last few months, Austria will phase out AstraZeneca from its COVID-19 immunisation programme because of delivery problems and caution among the population following reports of the vaccine’s rare side effects.

ConsumerConnect reports Austria becomes the third European country to drop AstraZeneca, after Norway and Denmark had ditched the vaccine brand over rare cases of severe blood clots in people receiving the jabs in the affected countries.

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen

Austrian Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein had told private TV channel Puls 24 Monday, May 17, saying, “we will probably continue to do first shots with AstraZeneca until early June, and then that’s it… AstraZeneca will be discontinued.”

Mueckstein said those who received a first shot of AstraZeneca would still get a second shot of the vaccine, but officials would determine which other vaccine to use for any refresher jabs later.

The Minister, who is said to be a doctor himself, has insisted that AstraZeneca is “safe”, but said Austria has taken the decision to discontinue it because of “bad compliance among the population”, “bad press” and “delivery problems”.

A third of Austria’s nine million people have received at least one Covid-19 shot, agency report stated.

In a related development, the European Commission (EU) is suing the British-Swedish pharmaceutical group over its failure to deliver millions of doses of its vaccine.

The European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organisation (WHO) both recommend continued use of the vaccine, arguing that the benefits far outweigh the associated risks.

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