Shawdesh Desk:

US health regulators have lifted an 11-day pause on the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Covid-19 jab, but will add a warning label about the potential for extremely rare blood clots.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) panel earlier approved restarting US rollout of the shot.

Fifteen vaccine recipients suffered from a dangerous blood clot out of nearly eight million given the jab.

This week, Europe’s drug regulator also ended restrictions on the J&J vaccine.

European regulators this month also linked similar, highly unusual blood clots to the AstraZeneca Covid-19 shot, but found the benefits of the drug outweighed any risks.

On Friday afternoon, the CDC and Food and Drug Administration swiftly followed the recommendation of the CDC advisory panel after it voted 10-4 to continue rolling out the vaccine for people 18 years of age and older in line with its original authorisation.

The decision means at least 10 million doses of the J&J vaccine, shipped from the company’s factory in the Netherlands, can be deployed across the US immediately.

(BBC)