EU drug agency greenlights AstraZeneca vaccine

The European Medicines Agency on Thursday said it couldn’t definitively rule out a link between AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot and reports of blood clots. But the European Union’s drug regulator said the shot doesn’t increase incidents of clots, and the benefits outweigh the risks. Italy, one of the countries that paused use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, plans to resume administering it. The agency will continue to investigate 25 reports of a rare kind of blood clot that occurred among the 20 million people who have received at least one dose.

Will Americans get the shot? The United States has not granted emergency use authorization to AstraZeneca’s vaccine, though the drugmaker is expected to apply in the next few weeks. The Biden administration has stockpiled tens of thousands of doses, along with a few others awaiting authorization. Following multiple international requests, the administration is planning to send 2.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca shot to Mexico and Canada.

Dig deeper: Read Mindy Belz’s report on why it’s so difficult for some poorer nations to get COVID-19 vaccines.