The World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency say there is no indication of a link between the vaccine and reports of blood clots.

Seven countries have so far fully suspended the AstraZeneca vaccinations.

Experts say cases of clotting in vaccinated people are lower than the number seen in the general population.

About 17 million people in the EU and the UK have received a dose of the vaccine, with fewer than 40 cases of blood clots reported as of last week, AstraZeneca said.

The Dutch government said its suspension, which will last until at least 29 March, was a precaution.

The Irish Republic took similar action over blood clotting reports in Norway. Denmark, Norway, Bulgaria, Iceland and the Democratic Republic of Congo have all suspended inoculations with the vaccine. Several European countries, including Italy and Austria, have suspended the use of certain batches of the drug as a precautionary measure.

Thailand announced that it would start using the vaccine on Tuesday, following a brief delay to the rollout over safety concerns.

'No confirmed issues' with Oxford/AstraZeneca jab

The director of the Oxford vaccine group has said there was no link between the jab it developed with AstraZeneca and blood clotting, after several countries suspended its use.

AFP reports:

Andrew Pollard said there was “very reassuring evidence that there is no increase in a blood clot phenomenon here in the UK, where most of the doses in Europe been given so far”.

“It’s absolutely critical that we don’t have a problem of not vaccinating people and have the balance of a huge risk, a known risk of Covid, against what appears so far from the data that we’ve got from the regulators - no signal of a problem,” he told the BBC.

Ireland and the Netherlands on Sunday became the latest countries to suspend their use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine out of precaution. Denmark, Norway and Iceland have also paused their rollout of the jab.

AstraZeneca said on Sunday there was no evidence of increased blood clots from the jab after outcomes from 17 million doses were analysed.

The pharmaceutical company said the 15 incidences of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and 22 events of pulmonary embolism reported among those given the vaccine was “much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population”.

“The nature of the pandemic has led to increased attention in individual cases and we are going beyond the standard practices for safety monitoring of licensed medicines in reporting vaccine events, to ensure public safety,” chief medical officer Ann Taylor said. “In terms of quality, there are also no confirmed issues related to any batch of our vaccine used across Europe, or the rest of the world.”