Official: EU agency to confirm AstraZeneca blood clot link

ROME (AP) — A top official at the European Medicines Agency said in an interview published Tuesday there is a causal link between AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine and rare blood clots, but that it's still unclear what the connection is and the benefits of taking the vaccine outweigh the risks of getting COVID-19.

Marco Cavaleri, head of health threats and vaccine strategy at the Amsterdam-based agency, told Rome's Il Messaggero newspaper that the EU medicines regulator is preparing to make a more definitive statement this week.

Based on the evidence to date, Cavaleri said there's a clear association between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the dozens of rare blood clots that have been reported worldwide amid the tens of millions of vaccine jabs that have been given out.

Last month, more than a dozen countries, including Germany, suspended their use of AstraZeneca over the blood clot issue. Most restarted — some with age restrictions — after the EMA said the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks of not inoculating people against COVID-19. At the time, the EMA recommended the vaccine's leaflet be updated to inform doctors and patients about the rare clots.

"It is becoming more and more difficult to affirm that there isn’t a cause-and-effect relationship between AstraZeneca vaccines and the very rare cases of blood clots associated with a low level of (blood) platelets,” Cavaleri was quoted as saying.

He said he appreciated the need for an unequivocal European recommendation on the safety of the vaccine for particular age groups but said he didn't expect the EMA to be able to provide that now.

“Certainly the information about the product will be updated, affirming that these adverse events are linked to the vaccine. It will be declared in a very clear...