ROME, April 15 (Reuters) - Four people died in Italy from
rare blood clots after they received the AstraZeneca
COVID-19 vaccine, a report from the AIFA national pharmaceutical
agency said on Thursday.
The AIFA report said various side-effects were seen
following 0.5% of the 9.07 million doses administered between
Dec. 27 and March 26, with all three vaccines so far used, by
manufacturers Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna,
reported to have triggered unwelcome reactions.
Severe side-effects were registered in 0.04% of cases.
Mild side-effects have been reported after use of all three
vaccines, the AIFA report said, adding most involved flu-like
symptoms, pain in the injection site and tiredness.
Like many European countries, Italy briefly halted
AstraZeneca inoculations last month when blood clot concerns
surfaced. It has since resumed them for those aged 60 and above
after EU regulators said the benefits outweighed the risks.
AIFA said there had been 11 cases in Italy of people
developing one of two types of blood clots following their
AstraZeneca shot - cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) and
thrombosis involving multiple blood vessels
Four of the 11 died, it said.
AstraZeneca has said it is "working to understand individual
cases and "possible mechanisms that could explain these
extremely rare events".
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, editing by Crispian Balmer and
Nick Macfie)
Astrazeneca (AZN)
