Expert: Chance of blood clot from the jag is tiny

The chance of dying from a blood clot after having the AstraZeneca jab is about one in a million.

Among more than 20 million people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccination in the UK so far, just 79 cases of blood clots have been reported, as well as 19 deaths, said the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

This equates to around one case per 250,000 people vaccinated – 0.0004% – and one death in a million.

About 100, 000 people in Europe per month develop blood clots, and 3,000 cases a month are thought to occur in the UK. A recent article in the British Medical Journal stated that to put the risk into context, one in 2,000 women a year will develop a blood clot from taking the combined oral contraceptive pill.

And every year one in 1,000 people will develop a blood clot from air travel.

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, said there was a much higher risk of death from the coronavirus than from the vaccine.

“Blood clots are very common, up to 20% of cancer patients will develop them but the risk of them from the AstraZeneca vaccine is tiny,” she said.

“The benefits of the vaccine still outweigh the risks. The risk of dying from Covid in the over-50s is one in 1,000 which is a very high risk, much more than the risk of death from the vaccine.”

Bauld added: “Even the flu vaccine can have very rare side effects, like Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause paralysis. It’s important to remember that with any medications, there are risks.”