Ireland halting the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine

[Kaylasmum49]

This just came up on my phone. I had the AZ vaccine 10 days ago. I'm concerned about the news of blood clotting issues.

This may have been mentioned previously but I heard an epidemiologist on R4 say that the number of people developing blood clots is actually lower in the people who have been vaccinated than in those who haven't. He gave the statistics for the number of people who develop this quite common problem under normal circumstances.
I will certainly be having my second dose when it's due and think it very unfortunate that people who are already fearful will be put off having the vaccine. I also heard that, in the unlikely event that the problem occurs, it will be in the few days following the vaccination.

I suppose that a country like Norway with lower mortality (12/100,000 compared with 189/100000 in UK)) can afford to wait till they have looked into these cases. Unlike UK and other Europeran countries.

Aruva, not sure why your GP would say this, common factor in the 4 cases in Norway is low platelets. As far as I know cause of this not clear (yet).
If talking about VTE after eg surgery, it usually does not happen straight away.

The media seems to saying that as well as the blood clots issue, the AZ vaccine has been suspended because of cases of thrombocytopenia and one death fom this in Norway also in Austria or Italy (but not sure of the numbers).

But there have also been 13 cases of thrombocytopenia and 1 thrombocytopenia death reported following the Pfizer vaccine so why is this not mentioned anywhere?

I suppose more will become clear in the days ahead.

Austria and Italy.

@knittingaddict

I love your name!

But to stick with the topic... My first choice would have been for everything to carry on as normal. I am, and have always been, anti-lockdown. If the health service can't cope with a pandemic, it's not fit for purpose and needs to be comprehensively dismantled and replaced by something that can cope with an ageing population and pandemics.

In addition, I am generally in favour of people developing natural immunity. However, if people being vaccinated will help us out of lockdown (and I work in big music events, or did until March 2020, so I really need this to happen), then I'll have a vaccination. I am CEV, but I also know that my chances of either dying of Covid or having a terrible reaction to a vaccine are as good as zero.

Along with everyone else's, in fact.

Everyone needs to drop the hysteria and make a decision based on logic.

This is NOT a clinical trial.

I reported all 8 of my side effects to the Yellow Card scheme.

If this carries on, Europe will be in a bigger mess than they already are. No jollies in the summer there.

I was desperate for my vaccine. They could have injected AZ with a rusty pen for me. At least l some protection.

@ewee

But they are not a "sample of the short term effects". How many people have received the vaccine? If you sat 17 million people in chairs, no vaccine, and watched them how many cardiac events would be recorded? How many visual disturbances? How many of them would die? Would that be caused by sitting in a chair?

When you are vaccinating huge numbers of people there will be adverse events that occur at a similar time to the vaccine but correlation is not causation.

Got this from Twitter:

If you vaccinate 100,000 people over the age of 50 today rather than tomorrow, you save 15 lives, according to a French analysis.

Germany has 1.7m AstraZeneca doses that are now not being administered.

Delay all of those by a week, you're up 1785 deaths.

I was really concerned when I heard this too.
However I’ve already had the AZ vaccine (3 weeks ago).
I’ve got an auto immune liver condition, which affects blood clotting, have a genetic blood clotting issue (my blood clots too easily) and I’m on heparin for a blood clot which I was hospitalised with last year.
I’ve had no issues from the AZ vaccine, apart from the usual side effects 24-48 hours afterwards.
I’m not saying it’s safe or not, I’m sure if I hadn’t had the AZ I’d want to avoid it, but I’ve been fine.

ewee your post is also a disgusting slur on the medical profession.

Lots of countries are pulling it. It seems to be an issue with the latest batches www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/15/which-countries-have-halted-use-of-astrazenecas-covid-vaccine

Just read a few more posts.
I also have low platelets.
So I’m a nightmare AZ patient apparently.
Thankfully I’m fine 🙂

I do not think this bickering and EU v's AZ/Brexit is helpful to anyone. We are all trying to do the best we can to fight this virus and we all need to work together to fight it.

I am in Ireland. Ireland have suspended the AZ vaccine for approx 1 week awaiting data relating to a batch of vaccine we have in Ireland. This batch has caused unusual clotting in younger people in Norway.

It is not a political decision. They are not doing it to get back at the UK because of Brexit or to tarnish the AZ name in Ireland/ EU. They were not told by the EU to do this.

We have problems with AZ vaccine supply in Ireland. This is twofold. The EU were late in ordering and AZ have also let us down on a number of occasions and have not delivered the promised quantities.

It would be great if we had the supply and were as far ahead with vaccinations as the UK. However it is good for us that the UK is doing so well with vaccinations as most of our cases came from England and Northern Ireland. However we are expecting millions of vaccines over the coming months ( j&j single dose) and are still on track to have 80% of the population vaccinated by June.

Hopefully any concerns about the AZ vaccine will be unfounded and we can all move on from this.

Ewee is a known anti-vaxxer posting in pseudo-sincere, neutral tone.

@MRex ADRs are under reported by medical professionals too.

See page 17 for reasons for under reporting

www.isoponline.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/BMAreport.pdf

Does everyone who reports an adverse effect to the yellow card scheme get a covid test? Those side effects, including strange blood clotting, are very commonly seen in covid patients.

[quote bumbleymummy]@MRex ADRs are under reported by medical professionals too.

See page 17 for reasons for under reporting

www.isoponline.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/BMAreport.pdf[/quote]
That document is 17 years old (May 2006)! Hopefully things may have moved on a little since then...

Oops. 15 years old! The AZ vaccine clearly fucks up one's ability to do simple maths.

@Threeorfour

Does everyone who reports an adverse effect to the yellow card scheme get a covid test? Those side effects, including strange blood clotting, are very commonly seen in covid patients.

I have been wondering about that too

@Threeorfour

Does everyone who reports an adverse effect to the yellow card scheme get a covid test? Those side effects, including strange blood clotting, are very commonly seen in covid patients.

No, it's purely a data gathering exercise

Lots of countries are pulling it. It seems to be an issue with the latest batches

Proof?

I’m clearly in the minority of those
that are of the opinion that ongoing safety reviews of a new vaccine is a good thing.

And do you think that doesn’t happen @NoddyMcPintsAlot?

I'm unsure which vaccine my cousin had as we rarely talk these days. But his daughter said he was very poorly after and had a mini stroke. At least we still have a choice, and I'm choosing to wait until the experiment period is over, which is 2023.