The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, or MHRA of Britain has urged people to continue taking the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. It has also disclosed seven people in the U.K. have died from rare blood clots after getting the jab. However, MHRA, also said that it wasn’t clear if the shots are causing the clots.
MHRA’s rigorous review into the U.K. reports of rare and specific types of blood clots is ongoing.
Though the agency said late Friday that seven people had died as a result of developing blood clots, it didn’t disclose any information about their ages or health conditions.
MHRA has identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events out of 18.1 million AstraZeneca doses administered up to and including March 24. The risk associated with this type of blood clot is “very small,” it added.
“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,” said Dr. June Raine, the agency’s chief executive.
Amidst the growing concerns over the adverse side effects of AstraZeneca, Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands have restricted its use to older people.
UK is more dependent on the home-grown AstraZeneca vaccine, which was developed by scientists at the University of Oxford. However, it has also started using the vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, of which the agency has not seen any reported blood clot events.
The relative success of the country’s vaccination program has been credited for helping to sharply reduce new coronavirus infections in the U.K. after a winter surge.
On Saturday, the U.K. recorded another 3,423 infections, slightly up on the previous day’s six-month low of 3,402. It also recorded only 10 coronavirus-related deaths, its lowest daily total since early September.
In France, which has restricted use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to people over 55, the family of a 38-year-old woman who died after suffering post-vaccination blood clots in the brain filed a criminal complaint in Toulouse on Saturday seeking a manslaughter investigation.
