European countries who are pausing the rollout of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are “overreacting” according to an expert.
It comes as the Federal Government has assured Australians the vaccine is safe.
Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal are the latest countries to suspend the vaccine amid reports of blood clots in some recipients.
But both the company behind the jab and European regulators have said there is no evidence the shot is to blame.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Today expert medical advice maintained the jab was safe.
“The World Health Organisation and the European equivalent of the TGA have both confirmed the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine and have said they have no evidence of that causal link between the vaccine and blood clots,” Mr Frydenberg said.
“In the United Kingdom they have successfully rolled out that vaccine, more than 12 million doses. They haven’t seen that pattern or those trends in those people who have received it.”
Dr Paul Griffin, an infectious disease physician in Brisbane, said the reports of clots are small compared to the number of people who have received the jab.
“This is an overreaction,” Dr Griffin told Today.
“AstraZeneca released some really useful information where they have looked at over 17 million who have received this vaccine. There’s only been 37 or so of these events which would be less than you’d expect in a population of this size.
“So this is an overreaction and we can still be confident of the safety of the vaccine.”
Dr Griffin added that European health authorities are acting very cautiously.
“I think it’s just the way they operate. I think they like to overreact,” he said.
“That’s how we’ve seen some respond to other events that were proven to be unrelated.
“It’s the right thing to do to investigate that to make sure none of those events represent a safety concern. In this case, we have enough information to know that is the case.
“The WHO (World Health Organisation) and the EMA (European Medicines Agency) have all said these events don’t appear to be linked and the vaccines are safe.”
Chairman of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Jane Halton told appeared on the Today show saying she is not worried about the issues raised by Europe.
“I’ll be surprised if there’s a fundamental problem here. That’s exactly why people monitor for these kinds of events,” she said.
“I know our authorities are watching this.
“Everyone should not be too worried about this. What the authorities in Europe are doing is doing what you want them to do, which is to just double-check.”
Australia received its first shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine in late February.
