Covid: People in Wales 'happy with Oxford-AstraZeneca jab' despite clot reports

The head of Wales' vaccine programme says concerns elsewhere over the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab are not putting Welsh people off having it.

A number of countries have suspended use of the vaccine following a few reports of people developing blood clots after being vaccinated.

Both the UK and European medicine approval agencies support the vaccine.

Dr Richard Roberts said people in Wales "rightly have confidence in the vaccine".

First Minister Mark Drakeford said he was "concerned" some people who were "50-50" might decide against getting the vaccine, but added there was no evidence of that happening "as yet".

Dr Roberts, head of the vaccine programme at Public Health Wales, told BBC Radio Wales: "We're seeing no signs that people are not coming forward for a vaccination.

"People rightly have confidence in the vaccine.

"If I was offered that vaccine today, I would go forward and have it- I would have no concerns whatsoever."

The UK government's health secretary Matt Hancock - responsible for the NHS in England - has urged people to "listen to the regulators" and get the jab.

Dr Roberts reiterated that the vaccine had backing at all regulatory levels.

"The European Medicines Agency and our own MHRA both say it's safe to continue using the vaccine," he said.

"These are the organisations that look on a daily basis at the reports coming in of side effects, and then they look at the background rates to see if its increased for safety signals.

"They both say it's safe to continue."

He compared a hypothetical risk of the vaccine increasing the chance of getting a blood clot with dying from Covid, saying getting the vaccine would be 1,000 times safer.

"In the first wave [of coronavirus last spring], the death rate from Covid was around 1%," he continued.

"So you have this known risk of Covid, and then this possibility, based on a very few cases, according to the European medicines agency.

"We don't know that these small number of cases are associated with the vaccine."

He found it "difficult to understand" decisions taken by governments to pause the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

"You have these national decisions to suspend a batch or suspend the programme in the middle of a pandemic," he said

"[But] if the agency's are saying it's safe to continue, that's really important to listen to."

Mr Drakeford said the figures for uptake of the vaccine in Wales remained "remarkably good" despite a slight reduction on Sunday, which he put down to it being Mother's Day and the easing of restrictions.

But the first minister said the figures had recovered very strongly on Monday.

"I'm very glad of that, because all the advice that we have is that the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe. There is no reason for anybody not to come forward for their appointment," he added.

"Come forward, you will be much better protected with it than you will be without it - the balance of harm is entirely in favour of having the vaccine."