President Macron has said that France is suspending the use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, pending a decision on its safety by the European Medicines Agency, on Monday.

Similarly, Indonesia will delay rollout of AstraZeneca COVID jab pending WHO review into blood clot fears, said the Southeast Asia nation’s health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

Italy has also decided to block the use of the vaccine country-wide as a ‘precautionary’ measure over fears of blood clot prevails.

This is coming after Denmark and Norway last week reported incidents of bleeding, blood clots and a low count of blood platelets in people who had received the AstraZeneca shot, prompting Ireland and the Netherlands to join them on Sunday in temporary suspensions.

Nigeria received 3.9 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines in March and has since begun a nationwide roll out of the mass inoculation programme. 

Nigerian health authorities issued a statement last week to reassure citizens of the vaccines’ safety as concerns arose with the cautionary suspension of the vaccines by some European nations.

Vaccine manufacturer AstraZeneca maintained that the vaccine had been approved by the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization based on a global clinical program involving 23,000 participants.

“All of these evaluations have concluded that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective,” the company said in a statement.