‘Rare’ blood clot cases lead to temporary halt on J&J vaccine roll-out

The health ministry has announced a temporary halt to the roll-out of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine as a “cautionary” measure on Tuesday.

The move comes after the US’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised on a temporary suspension of their vaccine roll-out.

This after six women reportedly developed blood clots between six and 13 days after vaccination, out of the over six million vaccines administered in the US thus far.

There has also been no reports of blood clot cases on the 289 787 health workers who have received the vaccine in South Africa.

“After this advisory came to my attention, I held urgent consultations with our scientists, who advised we cannot take the decision made by the FDA lightly,” said health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize.

“Based on their advice, we have determined to voluntarily suspend our roll-out until the causal relationship between the development of clots and the vaccine is sufficiently interrogated.”

He said the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) would collect information from Johnson & Johnson, the FDA and other regulatory bodies and advise the ministry on the next steps.

“We hope that the deliberations will only take a few days,” Mkhize said.

“Given the preliminary literature on hand, our scientists are confident that the FDA’s decision is on a precautionary basis. We expect that this will not result in the complete withdrawal of the vaccine.”

Mkhize also announced that they expected the first batch (under two million) of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine will arrive in May after successful negotiations.

“This, therefore, means we have secured 30 million doses of Pfizer vaccine for this financial year. This also reassures us that, in the extremely unlikely event that Johnson & Johnson’s roll-out is completely halted, we will not have any impediment to proceeding with phase 2 of the roll-out with Pfizer.”

He said that the Pfizer vaccines would also be monitored by the department.

“Although we are operating in a dynamic and ever-changing environment, the government is constantly seeking to secure vaccines that will protect us from the 501Y.V2 variant”.

Mkhize also called for calm and patience during this time.

He ensured the public that the department continued to “be properly guided by science in ensuring the safety of our people as we roll out the vaccine”.