Britain should give an alternative to Oxford/AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to under the 30s where possible due to a “vanishingly” rare side effect of blood clots in the brain, Britain’s vaccine advisory committee said on Wednesday.
Safety concerns have prompted more than a dozen countries in recent weeks to suspend the use of the vaccine, which has been given to tens of millions of people in Europe, after reports linking it to a brain blood clotting disorder in a few dozen recipients.
Wei Shen Lim, chair of Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said that based on the available data and evidence, the committee has advised that it was preferable for adults aged under 30 with no underlying conditions to be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine where available.
He said that for younger people, where the risks of hospitalization were much lower, the risk/benefit calculation of the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot meant others vaccines were preferable.
“We are advising a preference for one vaccine over another vaccine for a particular age group, really out of the utmost caution, rather than because we have any serious safety concerns,” Lim said at a briefing.
He said people should continue to have a second dose of the AstraZeneca shot if they had received the first dose. – Reuters
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