Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Government response entitled, UK regulator confirms that people should continue to receive the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca, published on 18 March 2021, if he will publish the evidence on which the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency based this advice.

To provide patients and healthcare professionals with information on the evolving safety experience with the COVID-19 vaccines used in the United Kingdom vaccination programme, from February 2021 the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has published details of their ongoing safety assessments in the coronavirus vaccine summary of Yellow Card reporting.

Information on blood clots occurring with thrombocytopenia was first included in the report on 25 March 2021 and was updated on a weekly basis to reflect the evolving assessment and regulatory position after the 7 April 2021 announcement that a link was considered possible and warnings were to be added to the vaccine’s product information. The higher incidence rate in younger adult age groups was highlighted with advice that the evolving evidence should be considered in the context of using this vaccine. From 29 April 2021 a breakdown of reports by age and sex was included, followed by the inclusion of incidence rates broken down by age. The report has continued to conclude that the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines outweigh the known risks for the majority of people.