There have been unconfirmed claims that a patient in Denmark died of a blood clot after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Professor Anthony Harnden, who is deputy chair of the government’s Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations (JCVI) told Sky News that 11m doses have been given to people and the “vaccine doesn’t cause blood clots.”
The Professor was asked should people be concerned who have already had the jab.
“They shouldn’t be worried at all at the moment.
“We’ve given 11m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the regulator is absolutely reassuring.
“The vaccine doesn’t cause blood clots. What we do know causes blood clots is Covid itself.
“People ought to be absolutely reassured that we are seeing no major safety signals in the UK.”
Professor Evans, who is a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. said the suspension of the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in some European countries as “super-cautious.”
He believes that the “benefit and risk balance is still very much in favour of the vaccine.”
Professor Evans said, “This is a super-cautious approach based on some isolated reports in Europe.
“The problem with spontaneous reports of suspected adverse reactions to a vaccine are the enormous difficulty of distinguishing a causal effect from a coincidence.
“This is especially true when we know that Covid-19 disease is very strongly associated with blood clotting and there have been hundreds if not many thousands of deaths caused by blood clotting as a result of Covid disease.
“The first thing to do is to be absolutely certain that the clots did not have some other cause, including Covid-19.”
“A sensible approach is to investigate and be sure that the benefit and risk balance is in favour of the vaccine.
“Since we know with great certainty that the vaccine prevents Covid with its attendant disease, and we are almost totally uncertain that the vaccine can have caused this problem, the risk and benefit balance is still very much in favour of the vaccine in my view.”
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said on Thursday that people should still get the Oxford vaccine as Denmark’s concerns are “not confirmed.”
The MHRA said in a statement today, “This is a precautionary measure by the Danish authorities.
“It has not been confirmed that the report of a blood clot was caused by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine.
“People should still go and get their COVID-19 vaccine when asked to do so.”
In a statement, the EMA added, “The information available so far indicates that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than that seen in the general population.
“As of March 9, 2021, 22 cases of thromboembolic events had been reported among the 3 million people vaccinated with COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in the European Economic Area.”
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