After the announcement, Thursday, of the cessation of injections of the AstraZeneca vaccine by three countries, Mathieu Molimard, professor of pharmacology at the Bordeaux University Hospital, calls for not drawing hasty conclusions on a possible dangerousness of the serum.

"A whole diagnostic process" must be put in place before being able to "draw conclusions", he recalls. 

DECRYPTION

Don't jump to conclusions.

This is the message delivered by Mathieu Molimard following the announcement of the precautionary stop on Thursday of injections of the AstraZeneca vaccine by Denmark, Iceland and Norway.

The reason: "serious cases of blood clots forming in people who have been vaccinated," authorities said.

At the microphone of Europe 1, the pharmacology professor at the Bordeaux University Hospital, however, calls for the vaccine developed by the Anglo-Swedish laboratory not to be considered dangerous.  

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A "chance" or a "cause"? 

"The whole issue is to know if it is an association or a causality", explains Mathieu Molimard.

"In other words, is the appearance of thromboses [blood clots,

ed

] a pure coincidence, or is it the AstraZeneca vaccine that is the cause." 

To be clear, pharmacovigilance specialists will "review the records of these patients, see the treatments that have been associated [with the vaccine] to determine if there are possibly other possible causes".

It is therefore "a whole diagnostic process" which must be put in place before being able to "draw conclusions".

"But for now, it's much too early," recalls the specialist. 

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"The risk-benefit ratio is excellent"

Despite the fears raised by the decisions taken by these three countries, Mathieu Molimard insists that "the benefit-risk ratio of the AstraZeneca vaccine is excellent".

It allows "to avoid deaths and it has not been noted significant adverse effects in the latest pharmacovigilance reports", he adds.

A position also held by the safety committee of the European Medicines Agency, which recalls that as of March 9, only 22 cases of thrombosis had been reported for more than three million people vaccinated in the European economic area.

"No need to suspend" injections of this vaccine in France, insists Véran

For his part, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, explained Thursday, during his press conference on the health situation, that the risk of formation of a blood clot is not statistically higher in patients vaccinated with AstraZeneca than in others.

Consequently, there is "no need to suspend" the injections of this serum in France, he ruled.

"Such thrombosis events have not been noted in France", replies Mathieu Molimard at the microphone of Europe 1.

Still, this situation is not good for the image of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which already enjoyed a bad reputation with part of the French population, in particular among some caregivers.

Last week, the Minister of Health even had to send a letter to them, urging them to be vaccinated.

A missive received coldly by the white coats, who demand "a vaccine more effective than AstraZeneca".