The British medical regulator said on Saturday that out of 30 people who have blood clots after receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, seven have died, AFP reports.
“From 30 cases to March 24 inclusive, unfortunately 7 died,” commented the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA said the 30 incidents were from a total of 18.1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine delivered by March 24th.
France is horrified by three new cases of thrombosis after vaccination with AstraZeneca
Announcing the 30 cases of blood clots on Friday, the MHRA said that “the benefits of Covid-19 vaccines continue to outweigh any risks”, urging the public to continue taking the vaccine.
By March 24, 22 reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) and eight other low platelet thrombotic events had been reported.
“The risk of this specific type of blood clot is very small,” the agency said. “The number and nature of suspected adverse reactions reported so far are not uncommon compared to other types of routinely used vaccines,” the MHRA said in a statement.
However, there are no such reports for the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
The Netherlands on Friday became the last in a series of European countries to stop vaccinations with AstraZeneca for people under the age of 60, amid fears of links to rare blood clots.
The move came after five new cases in the Netherlands involving women between the ages of 25 and 65, one of whom died.
Germany made a similar decision earlier this week.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which previously declared the AstraZeneca vaccine safe, as the World Health Organization did, is expected to announce updated advice on the issue on April 7.
The EMA reiterated on Wednesday that it believes the vaccine is safe and that experts have not identified specific risk factors such as age, gender or medical history.
The UK, where the vaccine was developed with Oxford University, is one of the worst affected by the coronavirus, with nearly 127,000 deaths.
According to new reports, the rate of AstraZeneca incidents in Britain is around 1 in 600,000.
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