AstraZeneca Moscow/Sputnik: The Indonesian Food and Drug Authority (BPOM) has decided to hold up the use of the UK-Swedish AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine amid fears that the recipients may develop potentially deadly blood clots, BPOM head Penny Lukito said on Monday.
"We are communicating with the [World Health Organization] WHO and the [Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization] SAGE out of precautions. The results will then be submitted to inter-agency team and the Health Ministry who will then decide whether AstraZeneca vaccine can be used in the national vaccination drive," Penny said, as quoted by the Jakarta Globe newspaper.
The BPOM chief expressed hope that it would not take long for the final say on the matter.
According to the media outlet, Indonesia received 1.1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week through the WHO-led COVAX international distribution initiative.
WHO is expected to hold a meeting on the safety of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday.
AstraZeneca said on Sunday that it had found no evidence of increased risk of blood clots from its COVID-19 vaccine after conducting a careful review of safety data of over 17 million inoculated people across the European Union and the United Kingdom. In the meantime, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg and Norway have temporarily suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine after citizens reported side-effects following inoculation from the vaccine's ABV5300 batch.
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