KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton says there are no reports of Jamaicans suffering from a rare blood clot side effect caused by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

The minister made the announcement during a post-cabinet briefing at Jamaica House with Information Minister Robert Morgan.

“There are no reports to date of any cases in Jamaica of persons, Jamaicans, suffering that rare side effect involving the AstraZeneca,” Dr Tufton said.

He continued to explain, “So, we have clinically, on record, no report of and those who would have taken would be highly unlikely if not impossible to have that side effect now, years after taking the vaccine and we are no longer distributing the vaccine.”

AstraZeneca admitted in court documents in February that its Vaxzevria vaccine “can, in very rare cases, cause TTS (thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome). This is a very rare syndrome which occurs when a person has blood clots (thrombosis) together with a low platelet count (thrombocytopenia).

On March 5, AstraZeneca applied to withdraw its “marketing authorisation” of the coronavirus vaccine worldwide. This came into effect on May 7.

The vaccine has been linked to at least 81 deaths in the United Kingdom as well as hundreds of serious injuries and the company is currently being sued by more than 50 alleged victims and grieving relatives.

READ: AstraZeneca withdraws COVID-19 vaccine due to rare side effect

However, the health minister was quick to reassure the public that no Jamaicans are reported to have suffered from any blood clotting linked to the vaccine.

His statement was supported by Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie.

“The side effects I note that persons are concerned about tend to happen between three days to three months. So, some persons are wondering ‘If I had received AstraZeneca then in 2021 and early 2022, am I still going to have the possibility of these side effects?’ and the answer is no. The likelihood of developing those side effects is three days to three months,” Dr Bisasor-McKenzie said.

She noted that AstraZeneca was a main tool in the global response to COVID-19 and so the benefits far outweighed any risks that later presented itself.

“The vaccine had gone through various studies and had proven to be a highly effective vaccine specifically in terms of reducing serious illnesses as well as reducing death, so the vaccine was widely used early in the response to COVID and over three billion doses were produced worldwide and were provided to persons. It is estimated that over six million lives were saved because of the AstraZeneca vaccine. All medications do have side effects and very early in the clinical studies that were done, the rare side effect of blood clots was not discovered at that time.

“From as early as the second quarter of 2021, we would have been alerted to the possibility of side effects including clots associated with AstraZeneca. I remember at the time we had several interviews about it as we sought to reassure the public on the use of the vaccine,” Dr Bisasor-McKenzie explained.

“This complication is extremely rare, occurring in about two per hundred thousand persons where there is an association of the formation of clots and within that group of persons that can have this effect then of course you will have a small percentage of persons that would have serious outcomes,” she added.

The chief medical officer said that as other vaccines became available there was an even further decline in the use of AstraZeneca, which led to the eventual halt in the manufacture and production of the vaccine.

“No, we are not administering the AstraZeneca vaccine anymore simply because it has not been on the market,” she said.

Dr Bisasor-McKenzie said the ministry stopped administering the vaccine in July 2022 when the last set of AstraZeneca expired.