The evidence is shifting towards a causal link between rare blood clots and the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, according to an expert.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said it had identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events out of 18.1 million doses of the jab administered up to and including March 24.
There have been seven deaths among the 30 cases.
The 30 cases include 22 reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) and eight of other thrombosis events with low platelets.
CVST clots stop blood draining from the brain properly.
Professor Paul Hunter, a medical microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “It is not uncommon to get clusters of rare events purely by chance.
“But once you find that cluster in one population and it then crops up in another – such as previously in the German and now in the English – then I think the chances of that being a random association is very, very low.
“Clearly more work needs to be done, but I think the evidence is shifting more towards it being causally related at the moment.”
