No cases of blood clots related to Covid vaccines in Malta – Gauci

Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci has said that, so far, there has been no confirmed case of blood clots related to any Covid-19 vaccine in the country.

Speaking on TVAM on Monday morning, Gauci said that there were two reports of blood clots after a vaccine was taken in Malta – one report after the person received the Pfizer jab, and another after the patients received the AstraZeneca jab.

Blood clotting was listed as a side-effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine by the European Medicines Agency recently, but the risk remains exceptionally rare – the UK’s health authority estimated that a clot could happen in one in 100,000 young adults who get the vaccine.

This is the same as the risk of dying under general anesthesia, or roughly the risk of a young woman developing a blood clot within a week of taking the contraceptive pill.

Gauci said that many medicines have side-effects, but that their benefits are much higher than their risks, something which applies to Covid19 as well.

She said that there are people who are not elderly who, even after no longer testing positive for the virus, are feeling its effects, “which is why we must remain vigilant in order not to spread the virus.”

Gauci also said that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is expected to arrive in Malta “in the coming days.”

In their daily update yesterday, the health authorities said that 47 new cases of Covid-19 were registered.

There were no new deaths related to Covid-19 – the second day in a row that this has happened – meaning that the death count remains at 402.

It is the first time that Malta has gone without a death related to the pandemic for two days since 2 to 3 January earlier this year.

52 people, meanwhile, have recovered from the virus – taking the number of active cases down to 553.

2,036 swab tests were carried out on Sunday, taking the total up to 828,497 so far.

244,718 doses of the vaccine were administered up until Sunday, of which 71,481 were second doses.

Malta has had 29,661 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. 28,706 of those have recovered, while 402 people have died.