Muhammad Ali Bukhari, CNMNG News

Toronto, March 30: Yesterday, Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization, in short, NACI has suspended the vaccination of AstraZeneca because of concerns over safety and advised the provinces, which most of the provinces agreed to follow. The reason for this is the issue of blood clots in the bodies of women in European countries. Although, 300,000 doses of the vaccine have already been administered in Canada and no blood clots have been reported anywhere, not even in the case of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines with mRNA properties.

In this regard, the vice-chair of the NACI Dr. Shelley Deeks said at a news conference on Monday that her committee had reached the “precautionary” measures because of “substantial uncertainty” in patients with low platelets-rich thrombocytopenia. Although thrombocytopenia has been a rare occurrence in Europe so far, the probability is only 1 in 150,000 to a million people. Nevertheless, the European Medicines Agency did not rule out the possibility. They specifically cited 18 related cases among women under the age of 55 within 14 days of receiving the vaccine.

However, Howard Njoo, deputy head of public health in Canada said, AstraZeneca vaccine prompts symptoms such as difficulty breathing, chest pain, swelling of the legs, abdominal pain, sudden headache or blurred vision, should seek immediate medical attention. And those who have not seen such symptoms in 20 days, they are safe.

In response to a question, why this vaccine was recommended for people over the age of 55, NACI chair Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh said there was a risk of blood clots in young people. In her words, adults can take any vaccine to avoid the risk of Covid-19 outbreak, at least considering the risk of external blood clots.

And when it comes to how safe the vaccine is, Marc Berthiaume, director of Health Canada’s Bureau of Medical Sciences, says that when millions of people are treated with one vaccine, rare and isolated incidents can occur. “This vaccine remains relevant,” he said. That’s why Health Canada’s chief medical adviser Dr. Supriya Sharma said, “This is something that is very rare and we need to continue to monitor it, and Canada has a robust monitoring system.”

In this context, AstraZeneca said in a statement yesterday evening that while they respected the NACI’s decision, but Health Canada had not made any adverse decisions regarding their vaccine since last week.