E-Paper
Canada considering warning labels for AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccines
Health Canada’s chief medical adviser Dr Supriya Sharma said the agency is looking at “changes” to the “information that goes with the vaccine to say there have been reports of this type of rare clot”
Canadian health authorities are considering adding a warning label on vials of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, cautioning their users in the country about the rare possibility of the jab causing blood clots.
During a media interaction on Tuesday, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser Dr Supriya Sharma said the agency is looking at “changes” to the “information that goes with the vaccine to say there have been reports of this type of rare clot”.
She, however, said the vaccine is still considered “appropriate” for those above 18 years of age and the recommendation that it should be administered won’t change.
Two iterations of the AZ vaccine were given emergency-use authorisation in Canada on February 26. Canada recently received its first batches of the AZ vaccine under the brand name Covishield, manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII).
Sharma said that “even the most effective vaccine only works if people trust it and agree to receive it”. She added, “At this point in time, we, of course, believe that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine continue to outweigh the risks.”
Canadian health authorities have warned that the race between Covid-19 vaccines and newly-detected variants of the coronavirus is close, especially with the mutations spreading quickly and affecting younger people.
Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr Theresa Tam, pointed to the B117 variant, which appears to have originated in the UK, saying it could increase hospitalisations and provoke severe outcomes within younger demographics.
In a statement released by the Public Health Agency of Canada, Tam noted the country has recorded nearly 5,500 Covid-19 cases caused by variants, with over 90% attributable to the B117 strain.
“As the number of new variant cases continues to increase, they account for a greater proportion of Covid-19 cases across Canada, reminding us of how tight the vaccines-versus-variants race continues to be,” Tam said.
Tam also said these variants spread more rapidly with a higher reproduction rate. Of the infections reported in Canada caused by new strains, 5,117 were caused by the B117 variant, 244 by the South African-origin B1351 one, and 124 by the P1 strain from Brazil.
Over 3,600 new cases related to the pandemic were reported on Tuesday in Canada, an increase of nearly 25% over the daily figure a fortnight back. Canada has so far recorded 942,325 confirmed cases and 22,735 fatalities.
