Pharmacist and Research Follow at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Kwame Sarpong Asiedu says reports suggesting AstraZeneca vaccine causes blood clotting should be disregarded.

A cross-section of Ghanaians has raised concerns following news from Denmark that the AstraZeneca vaccine had caused blood clotting after vaccination leading to the death of some people.

Subsequently, countries such as Thailand delayed rolling out the AstraZeneca vaccine.

But, speaking on Joy News' Newsfile Saturday, Kwame Sarpong Asiedu said there is no evidence that shows any correlation to the claim.

According to him, a possible cause of blood clotting may be a breach of tissue during the administration of the vaccine.

“There has been no causal relationship that it is the vaccine that is triggering it, it’s rather the procedure of breaching the tissue that is triggering it.

“Once you inject the muscle, you are going to cause clotting irregularities because you’ve breached a tissue,” he explained.  

He, therefore, encouraged Ghanaians to accept the opportunity to get vaccinated against the virus.

He added, “this adverse effect has been reported by all the vaccine developers including NOVAX, but in very few patients.”

The Pharmacist observed that regulators of the European Union are very sensitive to anything around the AstraZeneca vaccine, a reason Denmark had to pause vaccination for investigation following the report.

“Then suddenly, the press globally, without understanding the what goes on in the movement of drugs in international corners when it comes to biological agents, picked on it and started reporting that there had been a death.”

Mr Sarpong Asiedu stressed that the European Regulatory Authority had also stated that, “there was no causal relationship established then the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Authority also issues a statement.”

According to him, there have been about 420 million first doses of vaccines given across the world, out of which 109 million is from AstraZeneca.

He, however, observed that “so far, severe adverse effects for the AstraZeneca vaccine is 0.00027 per cent, so 2 times 10 to the power negative 6 per cent.”