JAKARTA - Vaccination spokesman from the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, asked the public not to worry about finding cases of blood clots in recipients of the AstraZeneca brand of COVID-19 vaccine.
This is related to post-immunization events (AEFI) in the form of blood clots in AstraZeneca vaccine recipients in several countries.
Nadia said that people need to see the benefits of immunity that will occur compared to the side effects.
"People do not need to be afraid of blood clots because the benefits are greater than the effects that arise. We know this vaccine (AstraZeneca) is very effective at over 65 years of age and has comorbidities", said Nadia in a YouTube broadcast by the Indonesian Ministry of Health, Tuesday, March 16.
Currently, the government has decided to postpone the distribution of the 1.1 million AstraZeneca vaccines that have arrived in Indonesia. However, said Nadia, this was not merely the emergence of cases of blood clots from the vaccine recipients.
Moreover, about 11 countries have decided to only temporarily suspend the injection of this vaccine, not canceling the AstraZeneca vaccine in their countries.
"Several countries have temporarily postponed them until they get clearer information, both from the Food and Drug Administration in their country, and the world health agency, in this case, the WHO", she said.
According to her, the reason for the Ministry of Health to delay the distribution of AstraZeneca is because the government has prioritized the principle of prudence. The government is still waiting for a review from the POM Agency and the Indonesian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (ITAGI).
"We follow in the direction of the BPOM. We know that BPOM together with ITAGI and the experts are reviewing whether the criteria for vaccine recipients that have been issued, which are intended for the use of vaccines produced by Sinovac or Bio Farma, will also have the same criteria as vaccines. AstraZeneca", she explained.
Nadia said the medical association from Europe and the British POM has clarified that there is no relationship between the occurrence of blood clots and the injection of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"If we look at the current data, 17 million people have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. In which, there were 40 cases of blood clots reported. So actually the cases are very small and have nothing to do with the AstraZeneca vaccine", she concluded.
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