Countries 'ultra cautious' over AstraZeneca jab clot fears

There is no clear reason to link the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine with blood clots, the professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has said.

Prof Martin McKee told BBC World News the countries suspending use of the vaccine were being "ultra cautious".

He said people should be "reasonably comfortable" with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) statement that there was no indication the vaccine was causing the blood clots.

"I think people are being extremely cautious because they recognise that if something did happen, if something went wrong, clearly you would have a loss of trust in the vaccine.

"The difficulty is whether or not reacting in this way actually increases the distrust or reduces it. I think that's a judgment call they have to make because I don't think we have a definitive answer to that," he said.

AstraZeneca has said the drug's safety had been studied extensively in clinical trials.