AstraZeneca: No evidence of link between vaccine, blood clots

British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said that there is no evidence linking its COVID-19 vaccine to blood clots, as several European countries pause inoculations due to concerns.

AstraZeneca said in a statement on Sunday that after reviewing 17 million vaccines administered in Europe, it had found no increased risk of “pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or thrombocytopenia” in any groups. 

“So far across the [European Union] EU and [United Kingdom] UK, there have been 15 events of DVT and 22 events of pulmonary embolism reported among those given the vaccine, based on the number of cases the Company has received as of 8 March,” the company said. “This is much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of this size and is similar across other licensed COVID-19 vaccines.”

Denmark, Iceland, Ireland and Norway have all paused administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine following reports of blood clots among patients.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has not been authorized for use in the U.S.

This company’s statement falls in line with remarks made by World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, who said there was no indication of a link between AstraZeneca’s vaccine and an increased risk of blood clots.

“In terms of quality, there are also no confirmed issues related to any batch of our vaccine used across Europe, or the rest of the world. Additional testing has, and is, being conducted by ourselves and independently by European health authorities and none of these re-tests have shown cause for concern,” AstraZeneca added.