UPDATE - Mexico Wants US To Share Some AstraZeneca Batches - Deputy Foreign Minister

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th March, 2021) Mexico has asked the United States for the AstraZeneca vaccine that is in stock in the US but has not yet been approved there, Mexico's deputy foreign minister for multilateral affairs, Martha Delgado, told Reuters.

"The possibility exists of being able to have access to some AstraZeneca batches they have," Delgado said, explaining that the vaccine is already authorized in Mexico.

The deputy foreign minister said the US has not yet addressed Mexico's request for AstraZeneca, as well as other COVID-19 vaccines, including the ones from Moderna and Novavax.

Many countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway have temporarily suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine after citizens reported side-effects, particularly blood clots, from getting the shots.

The UK-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said on Sunday that it had found no evidence of increased risk of blood clots from its COVID-19 vaccine after conducting a review of safety data of over 17 million inoculated people across the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Mexico's Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell announced at a Monday press conference that the AstraZeneca report demonstrates that cases of pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in Europe are unrelated to vaccination and are within the expected mortality statistics range. Lopez-Gatell said it was likely that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) were going to release a final statement within the next couple of days on the lack of connection between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the concerning cases of blood clots.

The EMA said in a statement on Monday that it was still investigating the possible link between the AstraZeneca shots and the increased occurrence of blood clots.