India will proceed with the use of the vaccine developed jointly by Oxford University and UK company AstraZeneca despite its suspension in a number of EU countries over concerns of side effects, the broadcaster NDTV reported on Tuesday, citing sources from the country's Health Ministry
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th March, 2021) India will proceed with the use of the vaccine developed jointly by Oxford University and UK company AstraZeneca despite its suspension in a number of EU countries over concerns of side effects, the broadcaster NDTV reported on Tuesday, citing sources from the country's Health Ministry.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a statement on Monday that it was probing the possible link between the AstraZeneca shots and the increased occurrence of blood clots, a matter that prompted such European states as France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, and Norway to temporarily pause the use of the vaccine.
The broadcaster's sources said that there were no reports of blood clotting after AstraZeneca shots and therefore the rollout of the vaccine will continue across India. However, the country's Adverse Events Following Immunization committee will meet soon to deliberate over the use of the vaccine.
The Indian vaccination portfolio includes Covishield, a national variant of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute, and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin vaccine.
Meanwhile, the health authorities warned that the western Maharashtra state was at the beginning of the second COVID-19 wave of transmissions due to limited efforts to curb the virus spread, such as monitoring, testing, isolation, and contact-tracing, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in a letter to the state government. Such conclusions are based on observations made by a group of doctors, deployed by the authorities to Maharashtra and Punjab states over a surge in COVID-19 cases earlier this month.
� To date, the country has confirmed 11.4 million coronavirus infections and 158,856 related fatalities.
