The benefits of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine firmly outweigh the risks, the head of Britain's medicines regulator on Thursday said after five reports of rare blood clots in the brain after receiving the shot.
"A causal relationship with the vaccine has not yet been established," June Raine, chief executive of the MHRA, said at a news conference, adding a review of the clots was ongoing.
"The MHRA assess this data (on clots) alongside the benefits of the vaccine in preventing COVID-19 with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death, and determined that the benefits firmly remain to outweigh the risks."
(Reporting by Kate Holton and Guy Faulconbridge, writing by Alistair Smout, editing by Estelle Shirbon)
