en 
"The vaccination plan has been paused with regard to AstraZeneca's vaccine and will be put back on track from Monday (22 March). We will resume the plan, accelerating it and recovering the delay of these four or five days without vaccination from AstraZeneca," said the coordinator of the task force for vaccination against Covid-19, Vice Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, at a press conference also attended by the president of Infarmed, Rui Ivo, and the Director-General of Health, Graça Freitas.
The decision was announced following the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) decision that AstraZeneca's vaccine "is safe and effective" and that it is not associated to the cases of blood clot formation that led to the suspension of its use in more than a dozen European countries.
The president of Infarmed highlighted the indications of the EMA's Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee and assured that they will be expressed as of 19 March in the information for health professionals and citizens.
"These conclusions are very clear in confirming that the benefits of AstraZeneca's vaccine far outweigh any risks that have been identified. The terms in which the evaluation was carried out and which allowed the vaccine to be used will now be set out in the documents that are approved by the EMA," said Rui Ivo, ensuring that the Portuguese entities have been "in articulation with their European counterparts.
After an investigation in recent days by the European regulator's Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee, EMA executive director Emer Cooke explained that the administration of AstraZeneca's vaccine "is not associated with an increased risk of thromboembolic events responsible for blood clots" in vaccinated people.
Emer Cooke stressed that these were "rare but quite serious" episodes out of a total of more than seven million people vaccinated in the European Union with AstraZeneca's drug and 11 million in the UK. "People can trust the vaccine", assured Emer Cooke, reinforcing that these are not "unexpected cases [...] because you are vaccinating millions and millions of people".
The EMA's endorsement came a day after the World Health Organisation (WHO) also recommended the continued administration of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine. "At this time, the WHO estimates that the risk/benefit balance is tilting in favour of the AstraZeneca vaccine and recommends that the vaccines continue" to be administered, the body said in a statement released on 17 March.
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With the Astrazeneca drug suspended in Norway, Sweden and Denmark due to clotting and some experts claiming death, Portugal is still willing to inject their population and teachers with this drug? People, remember you have a choice what is to be injected into your body. Once we allow this, there will be multiple injections to be taken yearly to cover all the mutations of the cold/covid virus. Once teachers are vaccinated, then they will start on the healthy children. Moderna is already testing young children with their vaccines. These drugs have been rushed to market without any long term testing and the pharma companies have immunity from prosecution, compliance from the main stream media and donations to all politicians and political parties. Do you really think serial liars like Johnson and Biden have your best interests at heart? Think and research carefully before you get vaccinated. You can't undo a vaccine.
By Michael Wayne Knight from UK on 19 Mar 2021, 22:42
Why such a change of medical opinion????
Who stopped it and who reinstated the vaccine???
By FRANCOIS BOTA from USA on 20 Mar 2021, 00:45
Portugal - as the current EU Presidency - sheeplike tagging along behind the big EU bully boys both to ban the use of the Oxford AZ vaccine then, bovinely, allowing it to be used (once OK'd first by the big EU bully boys) helpfully shows the vacuity behind the 'great friends with the UK' claim.
Particularly note those EU countries like Portugal that claim the UK Covid variant specifically is the problem. When in reality 20 of the EU states have no capability for testing for the other variants and / or have tightly controlled censorship not admitting to other variants within their borders!
As - at all and any cost to foreign tourist health - their tourism sector must be re-opened.
Sick tourists, their money spent, shipped back to their place of origin labelled as "having been sick before holidaying here" so not our fault!
By Sybil Wright from USA on 20 Mar 2021, 07:33
Blindly following the EU? Get a set and get whatever jabs you can. Forget what Ursula von Thingy and Napoleon Macron say!
By Ian from Lisbon on 21 Mar 2021, 05:44
I hope that Portugal will not just offer the Astra Zeneca Vaccine that people can chose also the Pfizer Vaccine.
By Sven from Algarve on 12 Apr 2021, 16:16