Canada mulls warning labels for AZ vaccines

TORONTO: Canada health authorities on Tuesday said they were considering adding warning labels on vials of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, cautioning vaccine takers about the rare possibility that the jabs may cause blood clots.

Health Canada’s chief medical adviser Dr Supriya Sharma said the agency is looking at “changes” to the “information that goes with the vaccine to say there have been reports of this type of rare clot”.

The vaccine, however, she said, is still considered “appropriate” for those above 18 years of age and the recommendation that it should be administered won’t change.

Two iterations of the AstraZeneca vaccine were given emergency-use authorisation in Canada on February 26. The country recently received its first batches of the vaccine under the brand name Covi-shield, manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII).

Sharma said that “even the most effective vaccine only works if people trust it and agree to receive it”, adding that “at this point in time, we, of course, believe that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine continue to outweigh the risks”.

Canadian health authorities have also warned that the race between Covid-19 vaccines and newly-detected variants of the virus is close, especially with the mutations spreading quickly and affecting younger people.

“As the number of new variant cases continues to increase, they account for a greater proportion of Covid-19 cases across Canada, reminding us of how tight the vaccines-versus-variants race continues to be,” Canada’s chief public health officer Dr Theresa Tam said.