Canada reports blood clot in Quebec woman vaccinated with AstraZeneca

The Public Health Agency of Canada says it has received a report of a blood clot after a Quebec woman received the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

This is the first such reported case in Canada.

Quebec says the female patient, whose age was not revealed, received the appropriate care and is recovering at home.

The vaccine was the one produced at the Serum Institute of India, known as Covishield.

Blood clots from the AstraZeneca vaccine are extremely rare but concerns about this adverse effect prompted the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) to advise provinces not to deliver the shot to anyone under the age of 55.

This comes after the United States decided to pause the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine also due to reports of rare blood clots. Health Canada is investigating those reports.

Health Canada asked AstraZeneca for a full risk assessment of its vaccine after reports of similar clots in Europe but says the side effect is extremely rare and the vaccine’s benefits still outweigh its risks.

More than 700,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered in Canada and the risk of getting blood clots from COVID-19 itself is far higher than from the vaccine.

Both Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca shots are viral vector vaccines, while the Pfizer and Moderna shots are mRNA vaccines.