Covid: No vaccine blood clot cases in Wales, study finds

Regulators in the UK, Europe and the World Health Organization concluded that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was safe

No cases of blood clots have been found in more than 440,000 people who have been vaccinated against coronavirus in Wales, a study has shown.

Research by Swansea University health data experts looked at vaccinations up to January with 180,000 AstraZeneca doses and 260,000 Pfizer-Biontech.

It follows concerns around Europe which led to some countries pausing their use of the AstraZeneca jab.

The vaccine has been declared safe by the World Health Organization.

The focus of the study was to understand whether reports of a small number of rare blood clotting disorders (venous sinus thromboembolism) reported in Norway and Germany had also been observed in vaccinated individuals in Wales.

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Prof Ronan Lyons, lead researcher, said: "This is an important finding about the safety of the vaccines in use in Wales.

"It is very good news for our collective efforts to emerge from this pandemic and save more lives through the vaccination programme."

The condition is rare, with fewer than one person per month diagnosed in Wales.

Seven people with a previous diagnosis of this condition had been vaccinated by 31 January but did not develop any symptoms following the jab.

Prof Lyons added: "We will continue to interrogate more data as it becomes available and as more people are vaccinated."

Latest figures from Public Health Wales (PHW) show 1,413,710 (44.8% of Wales' population) had received a first Covid vaccine by Monday night - and 424,016 had received both doses.