The United States health regulators including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Food and Drug Administration recommended a "pause" in administering the single-dose of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine amid concerns over reports of blood clots.
It is reported that six people were diagnosed with a "rare and severe" type blood clot after taking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which directly affected the brain, lowering their blood platelets. The rare blood clot is called 'cerebral venous sinus thrombosis'.
The six people who reported the blood clot in their brain were all women aged between 18 and 48, and the symptoms occurred between 6 to 13 days after their vaccination, according to a joint statement released from Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC and Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
As of April 12, more than 6.8 million doses of the J&J vaccine have been administered in the US before hitting the pause button by the federal authorities. The US federal vaccine distribution channel including vaccination spots across the country have been asked to pause the use of Johnson & Johnson shots as per the guidelines.
The joint statement released by Dr. Schuchat and Dr. Marks advises people who have received the J&J shots to watch out for symptoms such as severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath within three weeks after vaccination, and should contact their health care provider if they fall ill.
However, the joint statement noted that the adverse effects of the J&J vaccine "appear to be extremely rare," and only a fraction of people might feel the symptoms and there's no need to panic about the situation.
''It's a very rare event. You're talking about 1 per million, and when you give millions of doses of vaccines, you will see events like this that you couldn't see in the clinical trial just because you didn't have millions of people enrolled," Dr. Carlos del Rio, executive associate Dean of the Emory University School of Medicine at Grady Health System told CNN.
Also, just recently a man in New Jersey was hospitalized for Covid-19 and is in critical condition despite receiving both the Johnson & Johnson doses and a woman from Alaska tested positive for the virus even after being vaccinated by the J&J jab.
