Doctors urged ‘be alert’ to stroke after vaccine

DOCTORS are being told to watch out for signs of stroke in people receiving the Oxford/ AstraZeneca jab after three young patients were admitted to hospital and one died.

Experts say two women in their 30s and a man in his 40s suffered clots in their large arteries, leading to stroke, though they stressed the chances were small.

The team from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said doctors must be alert to patients with stroke within about one month of inoculation, saying they should be “urgently evaluated” for a very rare syndrome called vaccine-induced thrombosis and thrombocytopenia (VITT).

The condition needs rapid diagnosis and management by experts with quick access to a range of drugs, they said.

There have been 309 cases of the rare thrombosis from over 30 million Oxford jabs.

Dr June Raine, chief executive of the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said: “We will evaluate the reports. These kinds of blood clots remain extremely rare and unlikely to occur.”