India to Review Side Effects of Oxford-AstraZeneca's COVID-19 Vaccine Over Fears of Blood Clots: Report

New Delhi, March 13: India is going to conduct deeper review of post-vaccination side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the Oxford University and pharma giant AstraZeneca, next week, according to a report. The review of Oxford-AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine will be carried out in the wake of Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Thailand reporting isolated incidents of recipients developing blood clots, news agency AFP reported. Health Ministry Approves COVID Vaccination of Dependents, Veterans in Service Hospitals: Army.

Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Thailand have temporarily stopped administering doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine. "We are looking at all the adverse events, particularly serious adverse events like deaths and hospitalisation. We will come back if we find anything of concern," NK Arora, a member of National Task Force on COVID-19, was quoted by AFP as saying. No Shortage of COVID Vaccine Doses in Any State in India, Clarifies Health Ministry.

"There is no immediate issue of concern as number of adverse events (in India) is very, very low... We are re-looking at these to see if there was any issue of blood clotting," he added. Yesterday, more than 20 lakh of vaccine doses against COVID-19 were administered to the beneficiaries in the country. This is the highest single day vaccine administration so far. The cumulative figures of vaccination has reached a total of 2,82,18,457.

There are currently 2,02,022 active cases in the country, 1.78 per cent of the total positive cases, including 24,882 new cases in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, cumulative recoveries rose to 1,09,73,260 with the national recovery rate reaching 96.82 per cent.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 13, 2021 02:33 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).