Johnson & Johnson says it will delay the rollout of its Covid-19 vaccine in Europe amid concerns over blood clots.
The company announced it would assist European health authorities as they investigate rare blood clots in four recipients of the vaccine in the United States.
It comes as US health authorities put a halt to the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose jab in the US after six women aged between 18 and 48 had blood clots, with symptoms occurring six to 13 days after their shot.
In total, more than 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been given in the United States
through April 12.
A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) committee plans to review the cases linked to the J&J vaccine,
and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will review its analysis.
The White House said the pause would not have a "significant" impact on its plan to administer about three million shots per day and a total of 200 million shots before President Joe Biden's 100th day in office.
The CDC is recommending pausing using J&J's single-dose vaccine "out of an abundance of caution" to ensure that the health care providers are aware of potential side effects and can plan for "proper recognition and management."
It comes after the UK announced it would offer under 30s an alternative to the two-dose AstraZeneca vaccine due to evidence linking it to blood clots.
The European Medicines Agency has said its vaccine side effects monitoring system, as of April 4, had received 169 reports of cases of CVST, or clots in blood vessels exiting the brain, and 53 cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis (SVT), or clotting in veins in the abdomen out of 34 million doses in Britain and the European Economic Area in the last three months.
The UK last week announced an alternative to the low-cost jab would be given to younger people following a review of 79 cases of rare clotting coupled with low platelets, with 19 fatalities - 13 women and six men.
Eleven of the deaths were of people under the age of 50 and three were under the age of 30.
The UK is yet to approve the Johnson & Johnson vaccine although it has already ordered 30 million doses of the jab, which is also known as Janssen.
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