ASTRAZENECA has admitted in court documents that its widely used Covid-19 vaccine can cause rare side effects, including blood clots and low platelet count.

The pharmaceutical giant admitted for the first time in a class action lawsuit filed in the UK that the vaccine can “in very rare cases, cause TTS”, or Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome.

This syndrome is characterised by blood clots and a low blood platelet count in humans.

“It is admitted that the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS. The causal mechanism is not known,” the company said in the court documents in February, The Telegraph reported.

Malaysia is among the nations that had used the AstraZeneca vaccine in its fight against Covid-19. The vaccine was labelled as ChAdOx1-S (Recombinant) in Malaysia.

According to Health Ministry data, Malaysia took a supply of about 14 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, branded Covishield in the UK, was developed by the British-Swedish company in collaboration with Oxford University, UK. It was produced by the Serum Institute of India and was widely administered in over 150 countries.

Some studies conducted during the pandemic found the vaccine was 60% to 80% effective in protecting against the novel coronavirus.

However, research has since found that Covishield can cause some people to develop blood clots, which may prove fatal.

The class action lawsuit filed in the UK claimed that the vaccine led to deaths and severe injuries and sought damages up to £100 million for about 50 victims.

One of the complainants alleged that the vaccine gave him a permanent brain injury after he developed a blood clot, preventing him from working.

The admission by AstraZeneca in its court documents runs counter to the company’s insistence in 2023 that it would “not accept that TTS is caused by the vaccine at a generic level”.

The World Health Organisation has previously confirmed that AstraZeneca’s vaccine can have life-threatening side effects. – April 30, 2024.