* UK says 18-29 year olds should get other shots where
possible
* Oxford/AZ shot associated with rare cases of brain blood
clots
* Benefits outweigh the risks for vast majority, regulator
says
(Recasts headline and lead)
By Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Alistair Smout
LONDON, April 7 (Reuters) - Britain should give an
alternative to Oxford/AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine to
under 30s where possible due to a "vanishingly" rare side effect
of blood clots in the brain, Britain's vaccine advisory
committee said on Wednesday.
Safety concerns have prompted more than a dozen countries in
recent weeks to suspend use of the vaccine, which has been given
to tens of millions of people in Europe, after reports linking
it to a brain blood clotting disorder in a few dozen recipients.
Wei Shen Lim, chair of the Britain's Joint Committee on
Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said that based on the
available data and evidence, the committee has advised that it
was preferable for adults aged under 30 with no underlying
conditions to be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca
vaccine where available.
He said that for younger people, where the risks of
hospitalisation were much lower, the risk/benefit calculation of
the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot meant others vaccines were
preferable.
"We are advising a preference for one vaccine over another
vaccine for a particular age group, really out of the utmost
caution, rather than because we have any serious safety
concerns," Lim said at a briefing.
He said people should continue to have a second dose of the
AstraZeneca shot if they had received a first dose.
It came after Britain's MHRA medicine regulator identified a
possible side-effect from the COVID-19 vaccine developed by
Oxford University and AstraZeneca involving rare brain blood
clotting.
Chief executive June Raine said that the benefits of the
shot outweighed the risks for the vast majority, echoing an
update from Europe's medicine regulator also made on Wednesday.
Europe's and Britain's medicine regulators have been
investigating small numbers of reports of a brain blood clots,
know as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), that have
occurred in combination with unusually low blood platelet levels
after people have been given the shot.
Munir Pirmohamed, Chair of the Commission on Human
Medicines, said that the link between cerebral blood clots,
lower platelets and the AstraZeneca vaccine was "getting firmer"
"Absolute proof of the link between the vaccine adverse
events will need extensive scientific work based on the
currently available evidence," he said at a news conference.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam said the move
would have only a negligible impact on the pace of Britain's
vaccine rollout.
The rollout of Moderna's shot began on Wednesday,
while Britain is also deploying Pfizer's vaccine. Raine
said that over 20 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses had been
given by March 31, with 79 case reports of the side effect and
19 deaths.
"This is a vanishingly rare, but sadly quite serious,
adverse event... and you can't pick these kind of things up
until you have literally deployed tens of millions of doses of
vaccine," Van-Tam said.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Kate Holton, William James and
Paul Sandle; editing by James Davey/Guy Faulconbridge)