
UK medicines regulator is urging people to continue taking the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, despite seven people having died from rare blood clots after getting the jab.
The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, said it wasn't clear if the shots are causing the clots, and that its “rigorous review into the reports of rare and specific types of blood clots is ongoing.”
The agency said late Friday that seven people had died as a result of developing blood clots.
In total, MHRA said had identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events out of 18.1 million AstraZeneca doses administered up to and including March 24.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on Thursday said it had received no such reports of clotting events following use of the vaccine made by BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc.
On March 18, the UK medicines regulator said that there had been five cases of a rare brain blood clot among 11 million administered shots.
On Thursday, it put the count at 22 reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, an extremely rare brain clotting ailment, and 8 reports of other clotting events associated with low blood platelets out of a total of 18.1 million doses given.
Some countries are restricting use of the AstraZeneca vaccine while others have resumed inoculations, as investigations into reports of rare, and sometimes severe, blood clots continue.