UK medicines regulator to hold press conference on AstraZeneca jab

LONDON: Britain's independent medicines regulator said it will hold a press conference Wednesday afternoon over concerns about links between AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine and blood clots.

The 3:00 pm (1400 GMT) press conference by officials from the MHRA regulator and the government's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, comes as the European Medicines Agency will simultaneously present its findings on the issue.

The briefings follow around 30 blood clot incidents in Britain, including seven that proved fatal, involving people who had received the jab, the MHRA has said.

In total 18 million doses of the vaccine developed by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company and Oxford University have been administered in the UK.

EU countries have also detected dozens of cases of people with clots in blood vessels draining from the brain after receiving the vaccine.

Oxford University said late on Tuesday that it had paused a British trial of the AstraZeneca vaccine on children pending a decision by the MHRA.

In recent weeks, as questions were raised by several European nations over possible links between the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots, the UK has defended its homegrown jab.

As a precautionary measure several countries have stopped administering the AstraZeneca vaccine within certain age groups and at different points nations including France, Germany, Norway and Denmark have suspended its deployment.

Vaccine hesitancy related to fears about the AstraZeneca jab could hamper Britain's mass vaccination programme.

More than 31.6 million first doses of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines have been given out, representing three out of every five adults.