Australia will continue to roll out the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine despite health officials admitting they do not know if it causes potentially deadly blood clots.
In March more than a dozen countries suspended the jab after a handful of European patients suffered brain blockages that can cause strokes.
Germany is still banning the vaccine for under 60s amid fears the clots are more prominent in young people, particularly young women.
In March more than a dozen countries suspended the AstraZeneca jab after a handful of European patients suffered brain blockages that can cause strokes
European regulators are reviewing the data and on Tuesday Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccines at the European Medicines Agency, said he believes there is a ‘causal link’ between the vaccine and the clots.
But Australia’s Health Department Secretary Professor Brendan Murphy admitted on Wednesday that he does not know if there is a risk.
‘At the moment, we don’t have those answers,’ he said.
‘All I’m saying is that there is a lot of action at the moment analysing the information in Europe and in the UK and we are taking a very close interest in it.’
He said ‘the government and the department have taken the view that safety is absolutely paramount’.
‘The UK has had so much more experience than we have. They’ve got the better data,’ he said.
‘Europe has better data and that’s why we’re looking at their data to see whether this is a real problem and whether we need to do anything about it. All I’m saying is that this is a very active, ongoing review.’
Australia’s Health Department Secretary Professor Brendan Murphy (pictured) admitted on Wednesday that he does not know if there is a risk of blood clots from the AstraZeneca jab
Last month an investigation was launched after a 44-year-old Melbourne man was hospitalised with blood clots after getting the jab.
Australian health officials have previously said that blood clots happen in general life and any adverse effects suffered after vaccination may be coincidental.
The UK’s safety watchdog, the MHRA, has so far spotted 30 rare clotting events in 18.1 million doses – around one in every 600,000. But the EMA believes it may occur in up to one in every 100,000 under-60s.
Last week the UK regulator criticised Germany for suspending the jab in under-60s, arguing there was ‘no evidence’ to support age-based restrictions.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday called on Britons to still get AstraZeneca’s jab.
‘The advice to people is to keep going out there, get your jab, get your second jab,’ he said.
EU regulator boss Mr Cavaleri told Italian media there’s a clear association between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the dozens of rare blood clots that have been reported worldwide out of the tens of millions of AstraZeneca shots that have been given out.
‘It is becoming more and more difficult to affirm that there isn’t a cause-and-effect relationship between AstraZeneca vaccines and the very rare cases of blood clots associated with a low level of platelets,’ Mr Cavaleri was quoted as saying.
Marco Cavaleri, vaccines head at the European Medicines Agency, said there is a ‘link’ between AstraZeneca jab and clots
Asked about Cavaleri’s comments, the EMA press office said its evaluation ‘has not yet reached a conclusion and the review is currently ongoing.’
It said it planned a press conference as soon as the review is finalised, possibly Wednesday or Thursday.
The agency has repeatedly insisted AstraZeneca’s jab is safe and the benefits outweigh any risks.
AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which developed the vaccine, announced they were pausing the trial of their jabs in children while British regulators investigate the potential blood clot link in adults.
‘Whilst there are no safety concerns in the pediatric clinical trial, we await additional information’ from the British regulator, an Oxford spokesperson said in a statement.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization said its experts were also evaluating a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots – and that it might have a ‘fresh, conclusive assessment’ before Thursday.
After suspending the jab last month, most EU nations restarted on March 19 – some with age restrictions – after the EMA said the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks of not inoculating people against COVID-19. At the time, the EMA recommended the vaccine’s leaflet be updated with information about the rare clots.
Any further doubts about the AstraZeneca vaccine would be a setback for the shot, which is critical to Europe’s immunization campaign and a linchpin in the global strategy to get vaccines to poorer countries.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper and easier to use than rival vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna and has been endorsed for use in over 50 countries, including by the 27-nation EU and the World Health Organization. U.S. authorities are still evaluating the vaccine.
AstraZeneca is on track to roll out a new booster vaccine that will tackle coronavirus variants by autumn, the firm said
Mr Cavaleri said while EMA was prepared to declare a link, further study was still needed to understand why and how the phenomenon occurs.
He said the rare blood clots, including some in the brain, coupled with a low level of blood platelets that may make people at risk of serious bleeding, ‘seem to be the key event to study further.’
Mr Cavaleri promised more details soon, adding: ‘In the coming hours, we will say that the link is there, how this happens we still haven´t figured out.’
Mr Cavaleri said the biological mechanism for how the vaccine might be causing the rare clots was still unknown and if it was linked to how the shot is made, other vaccines with similar technologies might also need to be evaluated.
He stressed the risk-benefit analysis remained positive for the AstraZeneca jab, even for young women who appear to be more affected by the clots.
‘Let’s not forget that young women also end up in intensive care with COVID. So we need to do very meticulous work to understand if the risk-benefit analysis remains for all ages,’ he was quoted as saying.
