The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has announced this Tuesday that it has begun to study the pharmaceutical company Hipra's vaccine against the coronavirus. According to the EMA statement, the clinical studies submitted by the pharmaceutical company so far suggest that the drug may be effective against coronavirus and also against the omicron variant

Coronavirus infections are on the rise across Europe, including in countries with high vaccination rates. This, in turn, has accelerated the debate on whether to introduce a third dose. Countries like Belgium, with a 74% vaccination rate, recorded an incidence of 960 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, and this week have announced that all the population will be eligible for a third jab. On the other hand, in Spain, which for now registers much lower infection figures, the third dose will be applied to the over-60s and healthcare staff. The criteria, as has been happening throughout the pandemic, vary, therefore, depending on each country's health authorities and its epidemiological situation, especially until European regulators issue a clear verdict. At the moment, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) accepts the third dose will have to be widely administered, but experts are still working out what would be the best timing.

Adolescents aged 12 to 15 can also receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Europe. This was decided on Friday by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Its experts have been examining clinical trials on the efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine since May in order to be able to deliver this verdict in an accelerated manner. The pharmaceutical company had already argued that tests had been carried out on more than 2,260 adolescents showing 100% effectiveness and "good tolerance". The European Commission now has to take the final step to approve it, but each EU member state has the power to decide how and when it wants to start using it with this age group.

Everything is ready for the EU to start administering the Janssen vaccine. The American drugmaker Johnson&Johnson (Janssen in its European subsidiary) has announced that it is reactivating deliveries of its vaccine to the EU, shortly after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave it its backing. The regulator concluded the drug is safe despite the fact that possible "very rare" cases of thrombosis must be included among its side effects. This is exactly the same verdict that the European regulator issued with the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the difference that this time the cases of thrombosis analysed come from the United States, since the Janssen doses had not yet begun to be administered in Europe. Thus, the EMA is again clear that there is a much greater chance of being hospitalised or dying from coronavirus than from thrombosis very rarely caused by the AstraZeneca or Janssen vaccines. It is now up to European governments to decide whether, how and when they resume vaccination.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is investigating a possible link between four cases of severe thrombosis and the Janssen vaccine. The regulator informed of this action on Friday as part of the conclusions of this week's expert committee meeting, which was primarily aimed at looking into rare cases of thrombosis that have occurred after receiving AstraZeneca's vaccine. "At the moment it is not clear that there is a causal association between the Janssen vaccine and these cases," the statement said.

AstraZeneca's vaccine can cause thrombosis as a "very rare" side effect. After weeks of ups and downs, contradictory information and policies on the alleged link between the doses developed by Oxford University and some cases of thrombosis detected in different countries, this is the conclusion of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which has given another press conference after one of its experts said in an interview with Italian newspaper Il Messaggero that there is a link between AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine and cases of thrombosis. Even so, the regulator continues to strongly defend the use of this drug.

The only good thing about this whole mess with the AstraZeneca vaccine is that it shown that there are enough control and surveillance mechanisms for medicines at European level. In fact, it is a system that is so protective that perhaps it has caused more harm than it was intended to prevent. Yesterday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) presented its long-awaited report which, predictably, deemed the Oxford vaccine safe and effective and encouraged countries to continue vaccination. There is much more risk in not vaccinating than in vaccinating, insisted those responsible. In fact, it has not been entirely clear whether the thirty or so cases of thrombosis detected, some of which are "rare and unusual", are related to vaccination and will continue to be studied. However, they have recalled that this must be calibrated in relation to the nearly 18 million people immunised with this vaccine and, above all, to the thousands of deaths per week that covid-19 causes, which precisely includes among its deadly symptoms cases of thrombosis.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) stands firm. AstraZeneca's vaccine is "safe and effective" and the benefits it brings by way of protection against coronavirus outweigh the risks, the head of the European agency reiterated at a press conference on Thursday.

Spain has already identified three cases of adverse reactions to the AstraZeneca vaccine. One of them, that of a 43-year-old teacher in Marbella who has died after suffering an ischemic stroke. On Tuesday, the latest two cases reported to the Spanish Pharmacovigilance System were added to the one identified on Monday, among a total of 975,661 people vaccinated with the Anglo-Swedish vaccine in Spain. "These are three cases of thrombotic events that by themselves, although infrequent, can happen in the general population. In any case, the three cases have the particularity that the thrombotic events have been associated with a decrease in the number of platelets in the blood. This fact may suggest an abnormal activation of the coagulation system that would be associated with the formation of clots in locations that are not the most common", says the note from the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Health Products.

Since the covid-19 vaccines began to be administered worldwide, reports of progress or setbacks in vaccination on a global scale have not ceased to follow one after the other, with more or less controversy. In this context, and now that it seemed that, following specialists' recommendations, people were losing their fear of vaccination and were beginning to look forward to their turn, a host of doubts are once again undermining social confidence. This time, due to the appearance of thromboembolism in people who had been administered the Oxford/AstraZeneca (AZ) vaccine. Several countries, including Spain, have stopped vaccination with AZ. But is it true that AZ causes thrombosis?

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has had to come out on Tuesday in the face of the avalanche of European countries which, after eleven serious cases of thrombosis, have preventively suspended the application of the vaccine developed by the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, developed by Oxford Laboratories. The director of this European agency, Emer Cooke, has appeared at a press conference to calm the waters and send a message of confidence to the public. According to Cooke, "a situation like this is not unexpected" and, for the fourth time, reiterates that at this point the benefits of administering the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh its risks because the detected cases of thrombosis are very rare.

The fourth coronavirus vaccine has arrived in Europe. This Thursday the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson's European subsidiary Janssen. This vaccine is an important step for the European Union's vaccination strategy because it only requires a single dose and does not need special refrigeration, thus allowing the pace of immunisation to be accelerated once it starts to be distributed. This authorisation also has a particular implication for Catalonia, because Janssen has an agreement with Reig Jofre to mass produce and package the vaccine at the new plant in Sant Joan Despí. It only needs the approval of the European Commission, which is expected to arrive this afternoon, so that it can begin to be distributed.

The European Medicines Agency (EME) is starting to study the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. Despite the growing diplomatic diplomatic tensions between Russia and the European Union, and the scepticism that even the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, showed towards the Russian vaccine, the EME announced on Thursday that it is starting its scientific review of it. It is a preliminary step undertaken at the initiative of the EME, which considers that it already has enough information to study it and that it will be helpful to accelerate the authorisation process once Russia formally requests it.