Canada pauses AZ vaccines for under 55s (and says women most at risk)

[Boringlynormal]

Please tell me this isn’t something to worry about: www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/30/canada-suspends-use-of-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-for-those-under-55

Speaking as a woman in her 30s who was immunised 4 days ago (article tells us the risk is for young women 4 - 20 days after vaccination), I’m panicking now. Yes I know it’s rare but so is dying of Covid in my age group so I’m wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake.

By the way I’m very pro vaccine and leapt on the chance to get one. I’m just feeling so anxious now.

The advice is that anyone with a headache that lasts for more than 4 days after vaccination, or bruising beyond the site of vaccination after a few days, to seek medical attention immediately. Try to stay calm.

There have been five cases of the blood clot disorder in the UK, out of the millions of doses given - I’m pretty sure they were all men.

Are you pretty sure @Circumlocutious or you know? Link to credible source would be great.

@Circumlocutious Where did you get the info about them being men?

They were all men. It’s everywhere in multiple sources:

The UK has received five reports of a specific brain blood clot in people who had had the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, though no causal link has been made with the jab, the medicines regulator has said.

The five people were men aged 19 to 59 who experienced a clot together with low blood platelet count. One of the five has since died.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said it was looking at the reports but stressed the events were “extremely rare” and there was a possibility they could have been caused by Covid itself.

news.stv.tv/scotland/five-uk-cases-of-rare-blood-clot-after-astrazeneca-jab?top&amp

Also covered here:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/18/one-british-man-has-died-four-suffered-blood-clotting-astrazeneca/

European cases of vaccine-induced prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia have been primarily reported in women under the age of 55, with a few cases in men. ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/the-astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clots-and-vipit-what-you-need-to-know-1.5367509

How many doses have been given in the UK? Are we getting different batches from other countries? It seems weird that we are reporting so few adverse events eg this is in Germany. We have a good reporting structure so it can't be that they are just slipping through.

According to
@PEI_Germany
about 2,7 million people have now been vaccinated with AstraZenaca vaccine in Germany.
Amongst these:
31 cerebral venous thromboses (29 women)
19 of these also with thrombocytopenia reported
9 deaths

My DM had a heart attack 12 hours after the AZ. We don’t know if it is connected.

Interesting, @poppycat10 . Are you under the impression that the UK is not as transparent as other countries with regards to side effects?

I'm not but I saw people suggesting as much on a Twitter thread about the Canadian developments.

It just seems weird that we are getting quite different stats on this to the rest of the world and I wonder if we've been using different batches, using a different technique to vaccinate - or something.

The German Laender of Berlin and North-Rhine-Westfalia have now suspended AZ for the under 60s (including males I think).

Bear in mind that the age profile of people given the AZ vaccine in the UK will be older than those given the vaccine in the EU, because the EU mostly didn’t give AZ to the over 65s until very recently. However I’d have expected younger women to be reasonable well represented in the HCP vaccine band in the UK.

I too have been wondering why these cases seem to mostly happen outside the UK. It does make me worry that there is some sort of cover up going on tbh. Not a conspiracy theorist but the difference in reporting in the UK vs the European press is quite astonishing.

To me one of the worrying statement is that AstraZeneca, in their press releases, referring to the blood clots as 'round 17 million people in the EU and UK have now received our vaccine, and the number of cases of blood clots reported in this group is lower than the hundreds of cases that would be expected among the general population'. This does not take into account the age of the people who have had severe blood clots, or their health history, or the actual type of blood clotting recorded (which is very rare - prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia). This doesn't inspire confidence at all, not one bit. It's as if Astrazeneca are simply choosing to ignore and dismiss the reported cases.

To add to the German stats below, Spiegel today did the maths. 29 cases of these normally extremely rare blood clots were reported in 1.78 million vaccinated women under 70. That's one case in every 61,400 vaccinated women. Half of the patients died. The risk overall may still be low but if you are one of the unlucky ones then your chance of survival is about 50%. And no, you cannot compare it to the pill and its side effects - the thromboses you can get with the pill are far easier to treat and less lethal.

Agreed QwertyGirl - it doesn't inspire confidence. At all.

I'm supposed to be getting my first dose of the vaccine at 4.30 and not happy at all.

Totally understand... chin up, it will be fine (but I will feel the same about mine when it comes round). Watch out for headaches between 4-20 days after the jab and any unusual bruising. But I'm sure you know this already! Good luck!

Probably more risk driving to the appointment…

I've read that woman with autoimmune disorders are much more likely to have this complication.

As a 30 something with 2 autoimmune conditions I'm not sure I'd be happy to chance it

I had my AZ jab two weeks ago, pretty much when the story broke, and have been following the news slightly obsessively since then.

The UK silence is deafening and, to be honest, I find it really insulting. There are lots of women getting themselves in a bit of a state (myself included), with very little information beyond watching out for some pretty vague symptoms such as headaches or stomach pain.

Probably more risk driving to the appointment…

This isn’t the point though. Is there more risk of dying of Covid or of this blood problem? That’s the real question.

@Boringlynormal as a female in her 30s who has health anxiety and is 3 days post vaccination I also feel really concerned as when ever I’ve lookEd at the news or Facebook today I‘ve seen something about this. I guess we were aware of this when we went to our appointments and the risks are very small but I do feel really anxious about it today. When deciding to get the vaccination I based my decision on the fact that several European countries had investigated and subsequently reinstated the vaccination and that the US looked like they were about to approve it. I do however feel concerned that the U.K. are being less transparent about the risk and that no information was given at my appointment about what to look out for. My feeling is that the risk is probably less so than dying from Covid even at our age, though I need to look at the stats but it’s hard not to worry when it’s in the news everywhere and we are just hitting the potential at risk period. Also concerned now re the second dose.

I really am starting to wish I hadn’t had it. I had it just Friday past and tbh although the story has broken, they’d resumed in Europe and WHO had said safe and AZ had said nothing to see here. So if felt fine. I don’t know if it IS fine or if the shit is just starting to hit the fan. I’m an anxious person anyway but it’s making me feel quite ill.

@Rainbowsandstorms I think we might be twins! Your post is pretty much me word for word.

@Schulte

To add to the German stats below, Spiegel today did the maths. 29 cases of these normally extremely rare blood clots were reported in 1.78 million vaccinated women under 70. That's one case in every 61,400 vaccinated women. Half of the patients died. The risk overall may still be low but if you are one of the unlucky ones then your chance of survival is about 50%. And no, you cannot compare it to the pill and its side effects - the thromboses you can get with the pill are far easier to treat and less lethal.

Normal incidence rate according to this research is 2.78 cases per 100,000 women aged 30-50, which my maths tells me is 1 in 36,000: www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/strokeaha.112.671453.

There are undoubtedly going to be some rare and serious reactions to vaccines if we are going to vaccinate everyone. A lot of events might happen anyway and the element of chance must be assessed. Then there will be people with an underlying predisposition that is triggered by the vaccine or by the body's attempt to build antibodies; it's very hard to separate the two. What is mathematically certain is that drastically fewer people are hospitalised or die from vaccines than from covid, and we will all certainly come into contact with covid eventually.

It's reasonable for countries with no covid cases to pause vaccination programmes if they can afford the longer lockdown that implies. That presumes they are using the time to identify genetic or health predisposition and comparing covid death and hospitalisation rates for those conditions with the vaccine death and hospitalisation rates (really hard with cases being so rare). If countries have covid circulating in their communities and aren't locking down, then even a pause in the vaccination programme risks far more lives than it could hope to save by this approach.