SEVEN people have died of a rare blood clotting syndrome having had the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK.
Thirty cases of rare blood clot events after the use of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine have been identified by regulators, 25 more than the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency previously reported.
On Friday, the medicine regulator said that seven recipients of the jab have died after registering the rare blood clotting events.
It is still not clear if they are just a coincidence or a genuine side effect of the vaccine.
Major health agencies have rushed to reassure concerned people that the dangers posed by the jab are outweighed by the health benefits.
The MHRA, European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization have all said that benefits of the vaccine in the prevention of Covid-19 far outweigh any possible risk of blood clots.
Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, stressed that deaths linked to the vaccine remain very rare.
“Risk of death is still much, much greater in people who are unvaccinated than in people who have had the (Oxford) vaccine,” he told The Guardian.
“It would not put me off my next dose.”
Some countries are restricting use of the AstraZeneca vaccine while others have resumed inoculations, as investigations into reports of rare, and sometimes severe, blood clots continue.
Germany, France, the Netherlands and Canada have all restricted the vaccine’s use only among older people.
On March 18, the UK medicines regulator said that there had been five cases of a rare brain blood clot among 11 million administered shots.
On Thursday, it put the count at 22 reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), an extremely rare brain clotting ailment, and 8 reports of other clotting events associated with low blood platelets out of a total of 18.1 million doses given.
Dr June Raine, the MHRA’s chief executive, said the agency was looking into the reports but vaccinations would continue.
“The benefits of Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca in preventing Covid-19 infection and its complications continue to outweigh any risks and the public should continue to get their vaccine when invited to do so,” she said.
The nature of the clots found is unusual, with low levels of platelets and rare antibodies found in the blood, which have been linked to other clotting disorders.
– mirror.co.uk
