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CURRENT cases of heart attacks, strokes and blood clots have no link to the AstraZeneca vaccine, former health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.
Dr Noor Hisham, who held the aforementioned post during the Covid-19 pandemic, said there are no recent vaccination programmes using the AstraZeneca vaccine and that it was not used for booster shots.
“Heart attacks, strokes and blood clots occurring now are caused by other risk factors such as smoking, cholesterol problem and diabetes,” Dr Noor Hisham said in a Facebook post today.
The former health DG said the side effects that are associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine include blood clotting or vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT).
“This is a condition where blood clots occurred and there is a decrease in platelet count.
“This only occurs within a time frame of four days to four weeks after vaccination,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham urged the public not to worry, saying that the last AstraZeneca shot was given years ago.
He said the court trial that has attracted media attention is related to an incident that occurred in the United Kingdom during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The court case is not related to recent incidents, he added.
He urged the public to differentiate between the side effects involving VITT and other blood clotting problems.
“The diagnostic criteria for VITT must include it occurring within four weeks after vaccination and a low platelet count,” he said, adding that the diagnosis cannot be made visually without examination and confirmation by medical officers.
Dr Noor Hisham claimed that when the Health Ministry was deciding on the types of vaccine, they had received the reports that VITT could occur within four days to four weeks after vaccination.
He, however, said the vaccine was still necessary for the immunisation programme because the death rates caused by Covid-19 was escalating rapidly and that other vaccine supplies were also insufficient.
He also stressed that those who were deemed high-risk, including those with a history of blood clots, were not allowed to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine.
He said the Health Ministry had also issued guidelines to screen high-risk individuals from receiving this type of vaccine and for early detection of these side effects, including adverse events following immunisation (AEFI).
Dr Noor Hisham said the cases of VITT were very low, with a report of four cases per one million injections.
“When compared to the risk of blood clots and low platelets after a Covid-19 infection itself, the vaccine was safer.
"After a Covid-19 infection, the risk of thrombotic thrombocytopenia (TT) is as high as 165,000 cases per one million infections while the incidence of blood clots among smokers is higher, nearly 1,800 cases per one million smokers,” he said, adding that no VITT cases have been reported now.
Yesterday, Noor Hisham admitted that the government was aware of the AstraZeneca vaccine’s possible side effects when it was deployed. – May 28, 2024.
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