Italy has joined other European countries in barring the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for fears of a link to blood clots, pending a review by the European Union.
The decision by Italian medicines agency AIFA came after talks between Health Minister Roberto Speranza and the ministers in Germany, France, and Spain, his office said, Channels TV reports.
“The choices made and shared today by the main European countries on AstraZeneca have been taken purely as a precautionary measure pending the next decisive meeting of the European Medicines Agency,” Speranza said in a statement.
“We are confident that the European agency will already in the next few hours be able to definitively clarify this issue.”
Earlier, the regulator said it had “decided to extend the ban on the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine throughout Italy as a precautionary and temporary measure pending European Medicines Agency (EMA) rulings.”
Italy’s move followed that of Germany and France, which earlier Monday said they would stop administering the jab.
Over the weekend, Ireland and the Netherlands both suspended the vaccine, with a Dutch drug watchdog saying there were potentially 10 cases of blood clots linked to the vaccine.
