UK – The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is planning to develop a plan for the management and treatment of rare blood clots and hematological related conditions associated with COVID19 vaccines.
Aims of the guidelines are to combine the best knowledge that will help support clinicians in their diagnosis and treatment of individuals with such related conditions.
NICE is at the moment in collaborative talks with experts from the Hematology related organizations as it will try and review the evidence for identifying and managing blood related conditions.
Although only 14.2 cases of this rare condition occur per million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, NHS England has asked NICE to produce guidance as it can be very serious and requires ‘swift diagnosis and sometimes urgent treatment’
Currently, there is no national guidance for identifying and managing thrombosis, however the British Society for Hematology has previously published guidance by the UK Expert Hematology Panel regarding this condition.
The move by NICE to provide guidelines comes at a time when Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca are conducting early stage research into whether potential modifications of their Covid-19 vaccines could reduce or eliminate the risk of rare, but serious, blood clots associated with the shots.
Both vaccines have been previous linked to immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, which is a blood clot related issue.
Johnson & Johnson has been in the spotlight for wrong reason with the FDA in April adding a warning label to it use due to its blood clot related issues and barely a few months later it was again added to the warning list for causing a rare autoimmune disorder known as Guillain-Barre syndrome.
According to CDC data, about 100 preliminary reports of Guillain-Barre have been detected after 12.8 million doses of the J&J vaccine were administered.
The cases reported after receiving the J&J shot largely occurred about two weeks after vaccination and mostly in males, many aged 50 years and older.
With the vaccine being plagued with numerous health related issues, modifications of the vaccines both Johnson & Johnson as well as AstraZeneca might require changes to ownership rights or regulatory approval.
Despite the alarming reported cases of rare blood clot related to a couple of vaccines, more than 3.46 billion doses of various vaccines have been administered across 180 countries as a daily administration rate of 29.6 million cases a day.