The risks to people of having AstraZeneca's Vaxzevria vaccine are much lower than the risks of not having a COVID-19 vaccination, a leading medical scientist has told CGTN.
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the UK's University of East Anglia, said: "The one point that was made very clearly in the [European Medicines Agency] press briefing was that the risk associated with this is very low compared to the risk of not having had the vaccine.
"So if you decide against having the vaccine because of this, you're substantially less likely to live to Christmas than if you have the vaccine, even with a small, tiny risk of thrombosis."
Hunter says any vaccine hesitancy would prolong the pandemic and ultimately lead to more infections and deaths.
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On Wednesday the EU's regulator the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a press briefing, after an ongoing review of Vaxzevria, that there was a link between use of the jab and "very rare" blood clots, but stopped short of saying that use of the vaccine should be restricted, saying that its benefits still outweighed the risks.
EMA chief Emer Cooke has been urged by European health ministers to provide them with more detailed guidance about whether use of Vaxzevria should be restricted.
The UK's regulator found that 79 people experienced clots after receiving a first vaccine dose, of whom 19 died. More than 20 million Vaxzevria doses had been administered across the country by the end of March.
Use of the jab was suspended by 17 countries in March, to be restarted within days after the EMA concluded that the benefits of the jab outweighed the risks. However, some countries, including Germany, have excluded the jab from certain age cohorts. The UK now says that adults under 30 who have not yet had a first dose, will be offered other vaccines.
Hunter also addressed the growing crisis in Brazil, which on Tuesday recorded more than 4,000 COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours.
The country's total death toll is now second only to the U.S. at more than 345,000. Hunter warned that Brazil's health system on the brink of collapse, but furthermore that a new variant identified in the country could become a serious risk to the entire world unless it is contained.
"Not only is it more infectious, but it also has what's called an escaped mutant, which makes the virus that much more resistant to vaccine or indeed to immunity from a natural infection," said Hunter.