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FDA restricts use of J&J COVID-19 vaccine due to blood clot issues
Kaieteur News – On Thursday, the United States-Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) issued a new recommendation that limits who can use the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine due to a rare but serious risk of blood clots.
The FDA in its release stated that the vaccine should only be given to “individuals 18 years of age and older for whom other authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccines are not accessible or clinically appropriate, and to individuals 18 years of age and older who elect to receive the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine (J&J).”
Speaking about the latest recommendation was Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony who noted in his daily COVID-19 update yesterday that persons in Guyana who took the vaccine should not panic.
The Minister explained that cases of blood clotting in the United States of America was first detected in 2021 and because of that the FDA had put a pause to the use of the J&J vaccine at that time. “That was subsequently lifted after 10 days and they continue to advised that people can use the J&J vaccine and then they constituted an independent panel which then reported in December 2021 that people should use more of the mRNA vaccine versus the J&J vaccine,” he shared.
According to him, what has prompted the FDA’s decision now is that in the US at least nine persons have died in the first quarter of this year after receiving the J&J vaccine. He added that those persons had complication of thrombocytopenia, which is a blood clotting disorder.
“Now thrombocytopenia after the vaccine is a very, very rare thing. You have 3.25 cases per every million doses administered, so it’s very rare,” the Minister highlighted.
Since the country started using this vaccine in August last year, the Minister reported yesterday that no cases of blooding clotting have been detected thus far.
“Persons who have received Johnson & Johnson they don’t have to panic because if you have received the vaccine and you had no complications then you wouldn’t have any complications now,” he said.
The Health Minister disclosed too that generally, thrombocytopenia starts to develop in a person about a week, or two after being vaccinated.
“So if you have had the vaccine and nothing happened then you are not in danger. So I don’t think people who have received the J&J vaccine should panic. This is just a precautionary recommendation that has been made in the United States,” Minister Anthony stated.
The Johnson and Johnson dose is a single-shot COVID-19 vaccine that the government had sourced through a partnership between CARICOM and the African Union last year.
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