European Medicines Agency (EMA) official Marco Cavaleri said there was a link between AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and rare reports of blood clots, including pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis and thrombocytopenia, according to a Reuters report.
Two separate research groups in Europe had reached similar conclusions regarding the blood clots in March.
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European Medicines Agency (EMA) official Marco Cavaleri said there was a link between AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and rare reports of blood clots, including pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis and thrombocytopenia, according to a Reuters report.
Two separate research groups in Europe had reached similar conclusions regarding the blood clots in March.
AstraZeneca had previously downplayed the possibility that its COVID-19 vaccine is linked to such events. The company did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.
The benefits of the vaccine, which was jointly developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, still outweigh the risks, said Marco Cavaleri, head of health threats and vaccine strategy, in an interview with Rome’s Il Messaggero paper.
EMA is poised to make a formal announcement regarding the subject, Cavaleri said.
The EMA press office itself notes that it “has not yet reached a conclusion, and the review is curren…
The World Health Organization endorsed the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after several European countries have halted its use over potential safety risks.
AstraZeneca has observed 15 deep vein thrombosis (DVT) reports and 22 pulmonary embolism (PE) cases out of 17 million vaccine recipients in the E.U. and U.K. as of March 8. Based on that data, the incidence rate among that population would be roughly 0.00022%. The company issued a statement saying the rate of events is “much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of this size and is similar across other licensed COVID-19 vaccines.
WHO stressed in prepared remarks that COVID-19 vaccines cannot “reduce illness or deaths from other causes” and that “thromboembolic events are known to occur frequently.”
The agency said, based on the data currently available, the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.