(Adds detail, context)
Sept 8 (Reuters) - Europe's medicines regulator has added an
extremely rare nerve-damaging disorder, Guillain-Barré syndrome,
as a possible side-effect of AstraZeneca's COVID-19
vaccine, regular safety updates from the watchdog showed on
Wednesday.
The European Medicines Agency said a causal relationship
between GBS and the AstraZeneca shot, known as Vaxzevria, was a
"at least a reasonable possibility" after 833 cases of GBS were
reported out of 592 million doses of the vaccine given worldwide
by July 31.
The EMA categorised the side-effect as "very rare", the
lowest frequency of side-effect category it has, and has
emphasised that the benefits of the shot outweigh the risks.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has added a warning
over Guillain-Barré syndrome as a possible side-effect of
Johnson & Johnson's shot. Both vaccines use viral vector
technology, and have also been associated with rare blood clots.
The EMA also tagged some other less severe side-effects to
vaccines from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna as
well as AstraZeneca's shot.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by
Shinjini Ganguli and Mark Heinrich)