His opinion was eagerly awaited.

On Thursday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) judged the AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 to be "safe and effective", while several European countries had suspended the administration of this vaccine on Monday as a precaution after the report of potentially serious side effects.

A conclusion that the Anglo-Swedish group of course appreciated: "The safety of vaccines is essential and we welcome the decisions of the regulators who affirm the benefit of our vaccine to stop the pandemic", declared in a statement Ann Taylor, AstraZeneca's chief medical officer, stressing his confidence that vaccinations can resume in Europe.

And the latter will indeed not be long in coming.

Resumption of vaccinations in France on Friday

France will resume its vaccination program with this serum on Friday afternoon, Jean Castex announced Thursday evening.

Friday morning, the High Authority for Health "will update its recommendation regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine, so that we can resume immediately in the wake, from tomorrow afternoon, the vaccination campaign", declared the Prime Minister.

Thanks to the resumption of vaccinations with AstraZeneca "and the deliveries that are arriving, we will meet the objectives we have set ourselves", he assured.

Namely: "We want to have vaccinated, by mid-April, at least 10 million people, that is to say all of the vulnerable volunteers today eligible for vaccination: all over 75 years old and, among people over 50 years, those who present a risk factor ”.

Norway and Sweden prefer to wait

Italy and Germany will also resume AstraZeneca injections on Friday.

Spain intends to do the same from Wednesday.

On the other hand, if Denmark and Iceland had not yet made their position known, Norway and Sweden announced that they would wait before a possible resumption of vaccination with AstraZeneca.

Saying "to take note" of the opinion of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the Norwegian Institute of Public Health considered "premature to conclude" and indicated that it would deliver its own opinion "at the end of the week next ”.

“Vaccination with AstraZeneca will remain on hold until we have a full picture of the situation,” its director, Camilla Stoltenberg, said at a press conference.

Earlier Thursday, a Norwegian medical team said it saw a link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots seen in seriously ill patients or even died within days of a first injection.

"We have obtained results which can explain the clinical course of our hospitalized patients," said Paal Andre Holme, head of department at Oslo National Hospital, a few hours before the EMA press briefing.

These results support our hypothesis […] according to which these patients had a powerful immune response which led to the formation of antibodies which can affect the platelets and thus lead to a thrombus (blood clot) ”, he added.

Blame it on AstraZeneca's vaccine?

"I do not see any other possibility at this stage", he said, specifying however that they were "clues".

According to Norwegian media, these late results were not taken into account by the EMA.

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AI with AFP