Questions About AstraZeneca Jab Linger

Paris, April 4 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Apr, 2021 ) :Persistent questions on whether rare but serious blood clots among those getting the AstraZeneca jab against Covid-19 are more frequent than in the general population, and what causes them if they are, have continued to undermine confidence in the beleaguered vaccine.

The European Medicines Agency -- which has said that benefits outweigh risks such that the vaccine should remain in use -- will provide an updated assessment next week.

- What has been observed? The blood clots seen in a handful of people vaccinated with AstraZeneca are described by the French Medicines Agency (ANSM) as "highly untypical".

"This thrombosis of large veins is unusually located in the brain, and even more rarely in the digestive tract," the agency commented.

It is also associated with a condition characterised by abnormally low levels of platelets, which are small cell fragments in our blood that form clots to stop or prevent bleeding.

In mid-March Germany's medicines regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), was the first national health authority to flag what they described as an aberrantly high number of cases involving these rare cerebral blood clots, mostly in younger and middle-aged women.

According to some specialists, this set of symptoms pointed to so-called disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), in which blood clots form throughout the body.

Also seen in extreme cases of sepsis, this condition involves "both thrombosis and haemorrhaging", Odile Launay, a member of the scientific body advising the French government on Covid-19 vaccines, told AFP.