The head of the Croatian Public Health Institute, Krunoslav Capak, on Monday commented on the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) position that countries should avoid administering the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to people over 60 due to concern related to rare cases of blood clotting.

“As far as I know, it has only been decided that people with so-called capillary bleeding, which is a very rare disorder connected with the lack of certain blood proteins, should not be inoculated with the AstraZeneca vaccine,” Capak said.

He added that contrary to reports on some Croatian web portals over the weekend, EMA did not conclude that the AstraZeneca vaccine would not be administered to people over 65.

“Now that incidence in Europe is much lower than it was when vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine started, the relative risks have been changing slightly for those who get infected and possibly develop a serious form of the disease and those who get vaccinated and develop a serious side effect,” he said.

“Since those relative risks have changed, it is necessary to discuss the matter again at the European and national levels,” the HZJZ head said in Virovitica-Podravina County, where he attended the start of a vaccination campaign by mobile teams visiting smaller communities by bus to inoculate their residents.

Capak was accompanied by Health Minister Vili Beros, who dismissed claims on social networks that he did not fully pay his bill in a Zadar cafe which he left in protest at the fact that waiters were not wearing face masks.

Health minister comments on incident in Zadar café

“I talked to the cafe owner this morning, I did not leave the establishment without paying my bill in full,” Beros said.

“What kind of health minister would I be if I had stayed in the cafe… with waiters not wearing face masks,” he said, explaining that he had kindly asked the waitress taking his order to put on a face mask but she ignored the request.

He noted that there were foreign guests in the cafe whose perception of Croatia was also formed on the basis of compliance with anti-epidemic measures.

As for questions if workers should wear face masks outdoors, Beros said that that was necessary because waiters serving food and drinks in the open did so at less than two metres or a metre and a half from their guests.