AstraZeneca vaccine is safe, find clot reviews

There is no evidence the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine causes blood clots, say UK and EU regulators after a "thorough and careful review".

The MHRA and the EMA say people can have confidence in the vaccine's benefits and should get immunised, despite some countries pausing use.

But anyone with a headache lasting more than four days after vaccination should seek medical advice, as a precaution. The same advice applies if someone develops unusual bruising. That is because the regulators have received a very small number of reports of an extremely rare form of blood clot occurring in the brain.

It is this type of clot that triggered some European countries to pause rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

In the UK, five cases of cerebral sinus vein thrombosis (CSVT), among 11 million people who have received the vaccine, occurred in men aged between 19 and 59. One of these was fatal. The EMA has received an additional 13 reports of CSVT.

CSVT can occur naturally and no link to the vaccine has been established. The patients also had low blood platelet counts - cells involved with clotting. Covid infection can make clots more likely.

Dr June Raine, chief executive of the MHRA, said regulators would continue to closely monitor the situation and people should have the vaccine when it is their turn: "The public can have every confidence in the thoroughness of our review."

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Source: BBC News, 18 March 2021