Lithuania has no plans to suspend vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine, despite several EU member states having done so, a Health Ministry spokeswoman has said.
“Lithuania trusts experts – the European Medicines Agency and the State Medicines Control Agency – who say that there's no evidence the vaccine does damage. We are watching the situation but we have no plans to stop the vaccination with this vaccine and only one batch of it has been suspended,” Aistė Šuksta, spokeswoman for the health minister, told BNS on Friday.
Lithuania's State Medicines Control Agency later said it would not propose to temporarily suspend the use of the vaccine.
“No, the agency has no plans to propose to the ministry to suspend vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine. [...] We don't believe additional steps should be taken regarding the whole AstraZeneca vaccine,” Gytis Andrulionis, head of the agency, told reporters on Friday.
On Thursday, Denmark suspended vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine for two week after some patients developed clots following inoculations vaccine. The country's officials emphasised that it was a precaution and there was no evidence the clots were caused by the vaccine.
Norway and Iceland later followed suit.
Meanwhile, Italy said it was suspending the use of one AstraZeneca vaccine batch, but different from the ones suspended by Austria, Lithuania and several other EU member states earlier this week.
Read more: Lithuania suspends vaccine batch while Austria investigates death
Lithuania's Health Ministry said on Tuesday it had suspended the use of one AstraZeneca batch following reports from Austrian institutions about suspected adverse reactions.
Lithuania is now using the three EMA-approved Covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca.
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