Fear Covid – not jab risks, says public health expert
APOSSIBLE link between the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19 and blood clots, which has seen it listed as a very rare side effect, should not deter people from getting the jab, according to a Westcountry infectious diseases expert.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, Exeter University’s communicable disease and public health expert, said that despite the possibility of a rare link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots, the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks.
Talking to news channel TRT World, Dr Pankhania said: “I think we are heading in the direction of there may be a tenuous link, but what we need to take into perspective is Covid19 also gives you blood clots, and therefore the risk benefit analysis is still in the direction of that vaccines will protect your life and will prevent you from getting severe illness and also hopefully ‘long Covid’.”
The recent findings have led to UK under-30s, with less likelihood of Covid complications, being offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Dr Pankhania said concerns over the small risk of blood clots will not deter him from getting vaccinated and he added that blood clots can occur with people taking long flights, the contraceptive pill and smoking, among other causes. “I will be getting my vaccine in a couple of weeks time and I will take the AstraZeneca vaccine willingly. My narrative to other people who are concerned is on balance, blood clots are a very rare event,” he said.
“If you were to get Covid-19, you could get blood clots, you could die, and you could also get long Covid which could leave you with a lot of problems long term.
“Therefore, for a very rare and unusual event, possibly linked with the vaccine – we don’t know for sure – I would say it is better to take the vaccine and be safe.”
HAVING a coronavirus vaccine is safer than driving or cycling to work, a Government scientific adviser has said.
Professor Stephen Reicher said having a Covid-19 jab is “actually one of the safer things you do in the day”.
Figures suggest the risk of developing a rare blood clot is about four people in a million who receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said, prompting a change in course to offer under-30s in the UK an alternative jab.
Prof Reicher, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours, said it must be remembered that the chances of such clots developing are “incredibly rare events”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “Something like 30 or 40 people drown in the bath every year, something like 1,000 people die falling down the stairs, something like 200 die from choking on their breakfast, and that’s many, many more deaths than we get from these vaccines, so actually taking the vaccine is actually one of the safer things you do in the day.
“It’s definitely safer than cycling or driving to work, so these are incredibly rare events.”
Professor Anthony Harnden, deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, has urged people not to lose confidence in the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, describing it as “a great vaccine”. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Prof Harnden said there is a “much higher risk of getting severe blood clots from Covid than the extremely small risk from this vaccination”.
Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed, chairman of the Commission on Human Medicines, said recent research has shown that clots on the lungs occur in 7.8% of people who have Covid-19, while clots in the legs – known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT) – happen in 11.2% of Covid-19 sufferers.
He told a briefing on Wednesday that almost a quarter (23%) of patients who end up in intensive care with Covid-19 “will have some form of clot”. “That puts into context that the risk of clots is much higher with Covid-19 than these extremely rare events which are occurring with the vaccine,” he added.
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician from the University of Cambridge, said it was “crucially important” that the risk was set in context, and said the information given this week “shows there is a benefit-risk balance”.
He told the Press Association: “It looks like one in 100,000 for someone in their 20s or 30s, that’s about the risk of dying in a road accident in three months, or in some sort of accident in about a month.”