(Alliance News) - There is no evidence uptake of the AstraZeneca PLC coronavirus vaccine is slowing in the UK despite some European countries pausing its rollout, a public health expert has said.
Professor Linda Bauld of Edinburgh University said all studies indicated the jab was safe and effective, while the fact different countries were reviewing their position was a sign that the system was working.
British regulators said they have identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine but stressed the benefits of the jab in preventing coronavirus outweigh any risks.
The Medicines & Healthcare Regulatory Agency said on Thursday that the risk associated with this type of blood clot is "very small" and that the public should continue to take up the vaccine when offered it.
The agency said it had identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events following use of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca jab, out of 18.1 million doses administered up to and including March 24.
Of these, it said it had received 22 reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and eight reports of other thrombosis events with low platelets.
Responding to the data, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination & Immunisation said that taking up the vaccine was "by far the safest choice" at minimising risk of serious illness or death.
Professor Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol, said: "The report states that these cases are being very carefully investigated to better understand whether or not they may have any causal relationship with vaccination.
"Nevertheless, the extreme rarity of these events in the context of the many millions of vaccine doses that have been administered means that the risk-benefit decision facing people who are invited to receive Covid-19 vaccines is very straight forward: receiving the vaccine is by far the safest choice in terms of minimising individual risk of serious illness or death."
Regulators said they had received no reports of such clotting events after the use of the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE vaccine.
It comes after it emerged Germany was suspending use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people aged under 60 due to fears of a link with rare blood clots.
On Friday, the Dutch government also said it would be temporarily halting AstraZeneca jabs for people under 60, after it received five reports of blood clots with low blood plate counts following vaccinations.
The head of the European Medicines Agency has said that there is "no evidence" to support restricting the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in any population.
The agency said a causal link between unusual blood clots in people who have had the vaccine is "not proven, but is possible", adding that the benefits of the vaccine in preventing Covid-19 outweighed the risks of side effects.
This view is echoed by the World Health Organisation, which has urged countries to continue using the jab.
Speaking to the BBC's Good Morning Scotland radio programme, Professor Bauld said reports of blood clots were "very rare" and a direct link to the vaccine was very unlikely.
She said: "These kinds of pauses and reviews are a sign that the system is working.
"Because when you see either deaths or unlikely adverse events that you wouldn't anticipate or you didn't see in the trials it's reasonable for regulators to look at this.
"The MHRA is still consistently saying there's no cause for concern and that is absolutely the message to people."
She added: "It doesn't look from the behavioural response, the surveys I've seen, that it's affecting uptake in the UK and that's really important."
Bauld said she had recently received her blue letter inviting her for vaccination and she was "really looking forward" to it.
By Neil Pooran, PA Scotland Political Reporter
source: PA
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