Wales: Drakeford doesn't share concerns on Oxford Covid jab

Concern has been raised after Germany, France, Spain and Italy paused injections of the vaccine amid concerns about blood clots in people who have had the shot.

The Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Bulgaria, Iceland and Thailand have already temporarily suspended their use of the jab.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said “many thousands of people” develop blood clots every year in the EU and “the number of thromboembolic events overall in vaccinated people seems not to be higher than that seen in the general population”.

Wales' first minister said medical regulators in Wales don't share the concerns of some European counterparts.

Mr Drakeford told the Senedd: “My message to people in Wales is very simple. The Oxford vaccine is safe.

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“The anxieties that have been expressed about it elsewhere are not shared by the medicines regulator here in Wales, they are not shared by the World Health Organisation, they’re not shared by the European medicines regulatory agency and they are certainly not shared by our chief medical officer and our scientific advisers.”

He said he and health minister Vaughan Gething spoke to Wales’ chief medical officer Dr Frank Atherton about the evidence around the jab on Monday.

“Blood clots occur all the time in the population and the vaccine is not going to increase your risk of that,” he added.

“I don’t want anybody in Wales who may be hesitant about the vaccine to become more hesitant because of the stories that they will have seen or heard.”