BUCHAREST, March 11 (Xinhua) -- The Romanian health authorities decided late Thursday to temporarily quarantine over 4,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, coming from the same batch suspended in Italy, but to continue the vaccination with the serum from the other batches.
The batch involved is ABV 2856, announced the National Coordinating Committee for COVID-19 Vaccination Activities (CNCAV) in a statement, adding that Romania received 81,600 doses of the batch on Feb. 7, and more than 77,000 doses have been used so far.
The suspension decision was made at a meeting late in the day, which was attended by the representatives of CNCAV, the National Institute of Public Health, the Health Ministry, as well as the National Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices.
The remaining 4,317 doses of the vaccines in question will be sealed until the European Medicines Agency completes its evaluation, said the official statement, adding that "the vaccination will continue with all other batches of AstraZeneca vaccines currently in Romania ... so that the immunization process is not affected."
The decision to quarantine the batch was made as "an extreme precautionary measure," solely on the basis of the event reported in Italy, the statement said.
According to international reports, the Italian Medicines Agency on Thursday banned the use of the ABV 2856 batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to "serious adverse events" after inoculation.
The statement also said that Romania was not among the 17 EU countries that received the doses of the ABV 5300 batch, suspended over blood clot fears by several other member states of the European Union.
Romania added 5,236 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the highest daily infection count since Jan. 6 this year, bringing the country's total caseload to 845,352.
The authorities hope to alleviate the pandemic by stepping up its vaccination campaign that started on Dec. 27, 2020.
So far, 2,019,757 doses have been administered to 1,336,827 people, among whom 653,897 people have received the first dose and 682,930 others have got the second dose as well.