A medical worker prepares a dose of Oxford / AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Antwerp, Belgium, March 18, 2021. REUTERS / Yves Herman
Australia reported its first fatal accident from blood clots in a recipient of AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) COVID-19 injection on Friday, and the regulator said there was a likely link between the 48-year-old woman’s death and the vaccine.
Hers was the third instance of the rare blood clots that occurred in people who received the vaccine in Australia. The other two are recovering well, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) added.
It said it was “carefully reviewing” similar cases in Australia.
The New South Wales woman received the AstraZeneca vaccine on April 8, the day the government announced that the Pfizer (PFE.N) vaccine would be preferentially given to patients under 50, thus reducing the vaccination schedule. delayed. read more
In the absence of an alternative cause for the clot she developed, the Australian Vaccine Safety Investigation Group (VSIG) “believed that a causal relationship to vaccination should be assumed at this point,” the TGA said.
The VSIG had held a meeting late Friday after the news of the woman’s death.
The TGA said her case was complicated by underlying medical conditions, including diabetes, “as well as some atypical features.”
There had been at least 885,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines administered in Australia to date, which equates to a frequency of blood clots in every 295,000 cases, the TGA said.
“The total number … so far was no higher than the expected background rate for the most common types of blood clots,” he said.
The UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, has concluded, based on its review of cases reported in the UK, that the overall risk of cerebral sinus vein thrombosis – a rare blood clot in the brain – is about 1 in 250,000 people who received the vaccine. .
Australia has reported more than 22,000 COVID-19 cases of community transmission and 909 deaths. read more
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