Poland's Michał Dworczyk said that if the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the EU regulator, recommended that the use of shots made by the UK-based drug maker should be suspended, the government in Warsaw would "immediately" stop giving them out.
Germany, France and Italy announced on Monday they would suspend AstraZeneca shots, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said there was no proven link to serious side effects, and people should not panic, the Reuters news agency reported.
Polish health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said that over half a million people had been inoculated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in his country, with adverse reactions noted in only 0.36 percent of cases.
"We have not had any death" as a result of the vaccine being administered, he added.
Wojciech Andrusiewicz. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański
A total of 4,530,783 COVID-19 vaccine shots from several producers have been administered in Poland so far, including 11,069 over the last 24 hours, officials announced on Monday.
As of Monday, Poland had injected more than 2.9 million first doses in total, while over 1.6 million people have received a second shot, health ministry data showed.
Poland on Monday reported 10,896 new coronavirus infections and 28 more deaths, bringing its total number of cases during the pandemic to 1,917,527 and fatalities to 47,206.
The European Union, of which Poland is part, has struck deals to secure vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Moderna, CureVac, Sanofi-GSK, and Johnson & Johnson.
Denmark and Norway stopped giving the AstraZeneca shot last week after reporting isolated cases of bleeding, blood clots and a low platelet count. Iceland and Bulgaria followed suit, and Ireland and the Netherlands announced suspensions on Sunday.
(pk/gs)
Source: IAR/PAP/Reuters
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