Although the British government suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 on May 7, 2021 in children under 40 due to the risk of thrombosis, Brazil only decided on a similar restriction more than a year later, on the 27th of December 2022.
The information, however, only reached the media in the last week, as the Ministry of Health’s guidance was made discreetly. According to the recommendation, the immunizer developed by the University of Oxford should not be applied if Pfizer is available.
See too:
At the time the British government decided to suspend it, other countries followed immediately, such as Italy, Norway, Austria, Iceland, Denmark, Estonia, Luxembourg, Latvia and Lithuania. In Brazil, on the other hand, the immunizer continued to be applied without contraindication, not even for those who had non-vaccine thrombosis until the end of last year.
According to information from the newspaper Gazeta do Povo, until then more than 53 million doses of AstraZeneca and more than 30 million of Janssen, which uses the same manufacturing method, had been applied. Until September 2022, 98 cases of thrombosis were reported after vaccination, and 32 confirmed, according to the e-SUS Notifica surveillance system.
In a note to Gazeta do Povo, Anvisa stated that “all approved vaccines against Covid-19 are valid and the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the possible risks”. He also highlighted that he asked, in April 2021, for the AstraZeneca vaccine package insert to include thrombosis with thrombocytopenia as a warning and precaution. The entity also stressed that none of the immunizers approved by the regulator were unauthorized.
