U.K. Limits AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine to Over-30s Amid Blood-Clot Concerns -- Update
07 April 2021 - 5:35PM
Dow Jones News
By Max Colchester in London and Daniel Michaels in Brussels
The U.K.'s vaccines advisory body said Wednesday that
AstraZeneca PLC's Covid-19 vaccine should preferably not be given
to patients under 30 following concerns that it might cause
potentially deadly blood clots in very rare instances.
Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
said more work is needed to firm up the link between the vaccine
and blood clots.
Jonathan Van-Tam, Britain's deputy chief medical officer, said
the pace of Britain's vaccine rollout shouldn't be affected by the
decision provided currently expected supplies were delivered. The
government has said it plans to vaccinate every adult by the end of
July.
Also Wednesday, the European Union's health agency said it had
found possible links between the AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood
clots but that the shot's benefits continue to outweigh the
potential risks. The European Medicines Agency said it found no
specific risk factors linking the vaccine to the clots.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, which was developed jointly with the
University of Oxford, has faced questions about its efficacy and
potential side effects even as tens of millions of doses have been
administered following safety signoffs in more than 70 countries
world-wide.
The British government said last week that 79 severe
blood-clotting cases were reported in the U.K. out of 20 million
administered doses of the vaccine, according to data as of March
21. Nineteen of the people died, the regulator said.
Britain is planning to give all adults a Covid-19 vaccine dose
by the end of July. Health regulators now recommend that those
under 30 receive the shots developed jointly by Pfizer Inc. and
BioNTech SE and by Moderna Inc.
A number of EU member countries, including France, Germany and
Italy, temporarily suspended the vaccine's use last month following
reports that people who had received it developed rare blood clots
and that some had died, further slowing Europe's already slow
vaccination rollout.
On Wednesday, EMA officials said that most clots that have been
identified were in people under age 60 and women, but cautioned
that the data didn't pinpoint a clear link because it remained
unclear how representative recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine
are within the overall population.
"Some of that could be explained by how the vaccine is being
used," said Sabine Straus, chair of the EMA's safety committee, of
possible higher-risk groups.
EMA Executive Director Emer Cooke said that because the clots
are so rare, the risk of death from Covid-19 is much greater than
the risk of dying from the possible side effects.
Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com and Daniel
Michaels at daniel.michaels@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 07, 2021 11:20 ET (15:20 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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