There Are Cases Of Blood Clots, BPOM Does Not Recommend The AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine

Illustration (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The Food and Drug Administration (BPOM) stated that it does not recommend the use of the AstraZeneca brand of COVID-19 vaccine. This is because in several countries there have been cases of blood clots from the recipients of the vaccine.

Head of BPOM Penny C. Lukito said that currently his party together with the expert team of KOMNAS Drug Assessment, KOMNAS PP KIPI and ITAGI are conducting further studies since the issue of AstraZeneca vaccine safety was discovered.

"While it is still in the review process, it is recommended that AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine not be used," said Penny in a statement, Wednesday, March 17.

In fact, currently Indonesia has received 1.1 million doses of vaccine obtained through the COVAX Facility, produced in South Korea. However, Penny claimed that the AstraZeneca vaccine that was already in Indonesia was different from the vaccine that caused blood clotting cases in a number of countries.

"The batch of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine products that have entered Indonesia is different from the batch of products that are suspected of causing blood clots and are produced in different production facilities," he said.

Although AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccines with batch numbers ABV5300, ABV3025 and ABV2856 did not enter Indonesia, for caution, the POM together with the KOMNAS Drug Assessment expert team, KOMNAS PP KIPI and ITAGI conducted further studies since the safety issue became known.

Previously, the Ministry of Health had postponed the distribution of the 1.1 million AstraZeneca vaccines that had arrived in Indonesia.

However, the spokesperson for vaccination from the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, said this was not merely the emergence of cases of blood clots from the vaccine recipients.

Moreover, about 11 countries that have made the decision to only temporarily suspend the injection of this vaccine, not cancel the administration of 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, as well as the world health agency, in this case the WHO," he said.

According to him, 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 what is 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 and Bio Farma, will also have the same criteria as vaccines AstraZeneca, "he 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 in fact the cases are very small and have nothing to do with the AstraZeneca vaccine," he concluded.