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Ministry urges calm following COVID-19 vaccine’s side effect admission
In a recent legal defense against a class action lawsuit, British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca admitted that its vaccine can "in very rare cases, cause TTS", while acknowledging that the causal mechanism was yet known.
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A health worker prepares the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at a makeshift mass vaccination clinic in Denpasar, Bali, on July 6, 2021, as the Southeast Asian nation battled an unprecedented wave of new infections. (AFP/Sonny Tumbelaka)
T
he Health Ministry has called on the public to remain calm following a recent AstraZeneca admission on a serious but rare side effect that may be caused by the COVID-19 vaccine it produced.
The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant recently admitted in a legal document submitted to the court that its COVID-19 vaccine may cause a rare side effect called Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS), a medical condition causing people to have blood clots and a low blood platelet count, The Telegraph reported.
The admission was made in a legal defense to a class action lawsuit lodged in the United Kingdom by patients complaining of suffering from health problems with symptoms of blood clots and bleeding on the brain after receiving the vaccine.
“It is admitted that the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS. The causal mechanism is not known,” AstraZeneca admitted in the legal document.
But the firm added that the syndrome can also occur “in the absence of the AZ [or any] vaccines” and the causation in any individual case “will be a matter for expert evidence.”
Responding to AstraZeneca’s admission, Health Ministry spokesperson Siti Nadia Tarmizi reassured that Indonesian health authorities had not found any TTS cases among vaccine recipients in the county until now.
The Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) approved the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the country in February 2021. Since then, more than 73 million doses of the vaccine have been administered.
