According to a senior official, India is unconcerned over certain European Union countries halting usage of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and will proceed to carry out the shot in its massive immunisation campaign “with vigour.”
The AstraZeneca shots are made by India’s Serum Institute and are known as Covishield in the world. The vaccine is responsible for the bulk of the 35 million coronavirus vaccines issued in the world so far.
However, several European countries, including France, Spain, and Germany, have banned the vaccine due to concerns that it triggers blood clots.
On Wednesday, Vinod K Paul, a member of the Indian government’s advisory body NITI Aayog, said that although data was being reviewed, there was no evidence of a “causal relationship” between the vaccine and blood clots.
“(I) again assure you that we have no signal of concern in this regard and therefore clearly, our programme (with the vaccine)… will go on with full vigour,” Paul told reporters.
He added that India was “watching the information being made available from other sources, but today there is no concern at all”.
The Serum Institute, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, has now distributed tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to hundreds of largely developed countries across the world.
On Thursday, India announced 35,871 new coronavirus cases, the highest number in more than three months, with Maharashtra responsible for 65% of the total.
Since the United States and Brazil, the overall number of diseases has increased to 11.47 million. The number of fatalities grew by 172 to 159,216, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health.
