US federal health agencies today recommended pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine after six recipients developed a rare disorder involving blood clots, in a fresh setback to global efforts to tackle the pandemic.
The move comes a week after European regulators said they had found a possible link between AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and a rare blood clotting problem that had led to a small number of deaths.
Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) single dose vaccine - most Covid-19 shots are delivered over two doses - and AstraZeneca’s low-cost vaccine are seen as vital tools in the fight against a pandemic that has claimed more than three million lives.
An advisory committee to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will hold a meeting on tomorrow to review the cases linked to the J&J vaccine, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will review the analysis, the agencies said in a joint statement.
All six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48, and the symptoms occurred six to 13 days after vaccination.
In the cases, a type of blood clot called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) was seen in combination with low levels of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia).
The CDC and FDA said the adverse events appeared to be extremely rare.