European Medicines Agency: AstraZeneca Vaccine is Safe and Effective

A review by the European Medicines Agency has concluded the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is “safe and effective”, and “its benefits outweigh the risks,” the BBC reports.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) ran a study of the vaccine after 13 EU states, among them Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria, suspended their AstraZeneca vaccination programs following reports of a link to blood clots.

The EMA found the vaccine was “not associated” with higher risk of clots, the BBC states, but said it would “continue to study the possibility of such links.”

“Its benefits in protecting people from COVID-19, with the associated risks of death and hospitalization, outweigh the possible risks,” said Emer Cooke, the EMA’s Executive Director. “The vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of thrombotic events or blood clots”.

She added that the EMA could not, however, rule out a connection between the vaccine and a “small number of cases of rare and unusual but very serious clotting disorders. Additional investigations are being launched.”