Health
COVID-19: Seven have died in UK after receiving AstraZeneca vaccine, says regulator
The UK medical regulator said Saturday that out of 30 people who suffered rare blood clots after receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, seven have died.
The British acknowledgement of deaths comes as several European countries have paused the use of the AstraZeneca jab over a potential link to blood clots.
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said in a statement that “Out of the 30 reports up to and including 24 March, sadly 7 have died.”
The reports of thrombosis, submitted by medics or members of the public via a government website, came after 18.1 million doses of the vaccine had been administered in the country.
Most of the cases (22) were a rare clotting condition called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Eight cases saw people suffer other types of thrombosis combined with low levels of blood platelets, which help blood clot.
There were no reports of blood clots from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the UK regulator said, adding that “our thorough review into these reports is ongoing”.
But MHRA chief executive Dr June Raine stressed that the benefits far outweighed any risks. “The public should continue to get their vaccine when invited to do so,” she said.
Europe update expected
Both the MHRA and European Medicines Agency (EMA) say no causal link has yet been established between the blood clotting case and the AstraZeneca vaccine.
But growing concerns have prompted a number of countries to pause rollout of the vaccine or limit it to older people due to the relatively young age of those who suffered blood clots.
Netherlands on Friday halted vaccinations with the AstraZeneca jab for people under the age of 60 after five new cases among younger women, one of whom died.
Germany has suspended the use of the vaccine for those under 60 after 31 cases of blood clots, most of them among younger and middle-aged women.
A number of other countries including France have imposed a similar age restrictions, while Denmark and Norway have suspended all use of the vaccine.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which like the World Health Organization previously declared the AstraZeneca vaccine safe, is expected to announce updated advice on the issue on April 7.
It said Wednesday that there had been 62 cases worldwide of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, 44 of them in the European Economic Area, which includes the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
This figure did not include all Germany’s cases, however.
More than 9.2 million AstraZeneca jabs have been administered in the region.
The EMA said it believes the vaccine is safe and that experts have found no specific risk factors such as age, gender or medical history.
‘Weight of evidence’
Paul Hunter, a medical microbiologist at Britain’s University of East Anglia, told AFP that he had initially thought the link between vaccination and blood clots was likely to be a “random association”.
As evidence mounts of clusters in separate countries, “the weight of evidence is now looking towards Oxford-AstraZeneca actually being the cause of these adverse events”, he said.
Nevertheless, the risk for the unvaccinated of dying from Covid is “substantially greater,” he said.
A spokeswoman for AstraZeneca told AFP that patient safety is its “highest priority”.
UK, EU and World Health Organization regulatory bodies have concluded that the benefits “significantly outweigh the risks across all adult age groups”, she said.
AstraZeneca said last month following US efficiency trials that its vaccine is 76 percent effective at preventing the disease. It also said data for the EU and the UK showed no increased risk of blood clots.
The UK has administered more than 31 million first vaccine doses, using both the Oxford-AstraZeneca and the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs. People cannot choose which one they get.
The UK in June 2020 ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and supported its development. It also ordered 30 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine the same year.
AFP
The West African Society of Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition (WASPEN) has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make clinical malnutrition a national healthcare priority, warning that the crisis is growing but remains largely overlooked in Nigeria’s healthcare system.
WASPEN’s Founder and President, Dr. Teresa Pounds, made this appeal on Monday during a press conference ahead of the 2025 WASPEN Clinical Nutrition Conference, scheduled for June 17–19 in collaboration with the National Hospital Abuja.
Themed “Bridging the Gap: Integrating Hospital and Community Malnutrition Care in Developing Countries,” the event aims to foster solutions for hospital and community malnutrition.
Describing malnutrition as “the skeleton in the hospital’s closet,” Dr. Pounds emphasised the need for urgent awareness, policy reform, and collaboration among healthcare stakeholders to ensure effective hospital nutrition programs.
“Many patients in Nigerian hospitals suffer from inadequate nutritional support, leading to prolonged hospital stays, increased complications, and higher mortality rates. This issue must be addressed at the highest level,” she stated.
The press conference was attended by the management of Genrith Pharmaceuticals Limited, a major partner, led by its CEO, Chief Emmanuel Umenwa.
Call for National Clinical Nutrition Policy
Dr. Pounds, a U.S.-based specialist in critical care nutrition and a board-certified nutrition support pharmacist, urged the government to implement a national policy framework to support specialised clinical nutrition interventions. She stressed the importance of integrating mandatory nutrition screening and intervention into all healthcare facilities.
She also called on the Federal and State Ministries of Health to expand and enforce standardised clinical nutrition policies, ensure hospitals conduct structured nutrition screening for all patients, makes medical nutrition therapy accessible and affordable, and support research and local production of specialised nutritional products.
She further encouraged NAFDAC, NIPRD, pharmaceutical companies, and NGOs to collaborate on research, funding, and product development to improve hospital and community-based nutritional care.
Invest in Africa’s food markets to win the war on hunger, boost nutrition – AfDB
“We need a national framework that ensures no patient suffers due to a lack of proper nutrition,” the expert stressed.
Conference to Attract Top Medical and Policy Experts
Speaking on the upcoming conference, Dr. Pounds noted that it will bring together leading medical experts, policymakers, and healthcare stakeholders to develop strategies for addressing malnutrition.
Prominent figures expected at the event include Prof. Ali Pate, Coordinating Minister of Health (Special Guest of Honour), Nyesom Wike, Minister of the FCT (Chief Host), Prof. Muhammad Raji Mahmud, Chief Medical Director, National Hospital Abuja (Host), Prof. Audu Bala, President, Nigerian Medical Association (Keynote Speaker), Pharm. Ibrahim Tanko Ayuba, President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (Guest of Honour), and Prof. Salisu Maiwada Abubaka, President, Nutrition Society of Nigeria (Guest of Honour) admiration.
Pre-Conference Activities
Prof. Raji Mahmud, Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital Abuja, represented by the Chairperson of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), Pharm. Adesola Clara assured that the hospital has the necessary facilities and expertise to host a successful conference. He emphasised that the hospital is fully prepared for the programme.
Also, the WASPEN Central Planning Committee, led by Mrs. Ghinsel Blessing, revealed that pre-conference activities will include a hands-on training workshop on nutritional kits in hospitals, scheduled for June 16, a health walk to raise awareness about hospital malnutrition, expected to be led by First Lady Sen. Oluremi Tinubu.
With malnutrition posing a silent but deadly threat to healthcare outcomes, WASPEN hopes that the Tinubu administration will take decisive action to integrate nutrition-focused interventions into Nigeria’s health policies.
The 2025 WASPEN Clinical Nutrition Conference is expected to be a game-changer in shaping the future of clinical nutrition in Nigeria and West Africa.
Two US biotech companies say the Food and Drug Administration has cleared them to conduct clinical trials of their gene-edited pig kidneys for human transplants.
United Therapeutics along with another company, eGenesis, have been working since 2021 on experiments implanting pig kidneys into humans: initially brain-dead patients and more recently living recipients.
Advocates hope the approach will help address the severe organ shortage. More than 100,000 people in the United States are awaiting transplants, including over 90,000 in need of kidneys.
United Therapeutics’s approval, announced Monday, allows the company to advance its technology toward a licensed product if the trial succeeds.
The study authorization was hailed as a “significant step forward in our relentless mission to expand the availability of transplantable organs,” by Leigh Peterson, the company’s executive vice president.
The trial will initially enroll six patients with the end-stage renal disease before expanding to as many as 50, United Therapeutics said in a statement. The first transplant is expected in mid-2025.
Meanwhile, rival eGenesis said it had received FDA approval in December for a separate three-patient kidney study.
“The study will evaluate patients with kidney failure who are listed for a transplant but who face a low probability of receiving a deceased donor offer within a five-year timeframe,” the company said.
Xenotransplantation — transplanting organs from one species to another — has been a tantalizing yet elusive goal for science.
Early experiments in primates faltered, but advances in gene editing and immune system management have brought the field closer to reality.
Pigs have emerged as ideal donors: they grow quickly, produce large litters, and are already part of the human food supply.
United Therapeutics said trial patients would be monitored for life, assessing survival rates, kidney function, and the risk of zoonotic infections — diseases that jump from animals to humans.
Currently, there is only one living human recipient of a pig organ: Towana Looney, a 53-year-old from Alabama who received a United Therapeutics kidney on November 25, 2024.
She is also the longest-surviving recipient, having lived with a pig kidney for 71 days as of Tuesday. David Bennett of Maryland received a pig heart in 2022 and survived 60 days.
The Swiss government said Thursday it aimed to overhaul its law on medically-assisted reproduction to legalise egg donations and give broader access to sperm donations.
Currently egg donations are not allowed and only married couples can access sperm donations.
The Swiss parliament has long said it wants to change that, and has asked the government with coming up with a proposal to provide broader access.
A government statement said it had “decided to completely revise the law on medically assisted reproduction in order to adapt it to the current context” and had asked the interior ministry to draft a proposed law by the end of next year.
The government said it wants to legalise egg donations in cases where a woman in a couple is infertile, as a parallel to the already legal use of sperm donations in cases of male sterility.
Bern said its priority was “the protection of donors and the welfare of the child”, stressing that “this protection cannot be guaranteed if parents resort to egg donation abroad”.
The government also said it wanted to expand access to both egg and sperm donation to unmarried couples.
After Switzerland legalised same-sex marriage in 2022, married lesbian couples have also had access to sperm donations.
But the government said the current law barring unmarried couples from access to such medically assisted reproduction was “outdated and no longer corresponds to social reality”.
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