Blood clot cases make U.S pause on Johnson and Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine
REUTERS- United States federal health agencies today recommended pausing the use of Johnson and Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine after six recipients developed a rare disorder involving blood clots.
The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention will hold an advisory meeting on Wednesday to review the cases.
All the six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and a second in Nebraska has been hospitalized in critical condition, the New York Times reported, citing officials.
The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a joint statement that the adverse events appear to be extremely rare right now.
As of April 12, more than 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been administered in the United States.
The company’s shares were down 3 per cent before the opening bell.
The move from the U.S. regulators comes less than a week after Europe’s drugs regulator said it was reviewing rare blood clots in four people in the United States who received the shot.
Similarly, Australia said that it will not purchase Johnson and Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, citing concerns that it is of the same type as the Astrazeneca vaccine which is no longer recommended for people under 50.
The decision further narrows the scope of possible vaccine candidates to be rolled out in Australia, where the government has purchased an additional doses of Pfizer in a bid to ramp up a sluggish start to a program currently reliant on just two vaccines.
Australia has now abandoned official targets for the rollout, conceding that all Australians may not be vaccinated by year’s end.
On April 6,2021 a spokesman for the health minister, Greg Hunt, said the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine “is an adenovirus vaccine, the same type of vaccine as the AstraZeneca vaccine”.
“The government does not intend to purchase any further adenovirus vaccines at this time,” he said.
