People under 60 should not get 2nd AstraZeneca vaccine: German experts

However, National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin later said the rollout would continue as planned as AstraZeneca said it had yet to find data linking the vaccine to reports of blood clots, which had resulted in several deaths.

The organisation said in the period when the five cases were reported, some 400,000 people were vaccinated in the Netherlands with the AstraZeneca shot.

Although more research is needed to examine possible links, "the key thing to remember is how rare these brain clots are, and how powerful the proven benefit of vaccination is against Covid", said David Werring, professor of clinical neurology at University College London's Institute of Neurology.

In a statement on Friday, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization said, "There is not a higher overall rate of relatively common types of blood clots. reported after COVID-19 vaccination". The vaccine received conditional approval on March 2. "Between day four and day 20, after vaccination, and have generally caused severe symptoms requiring hospitalisation", he said.

The previously delayed shipment of 600,000 Moderna vaccine doses will arrive on Friday, with deliveries beginning on Saturday, the government's vaccine distribution czar, Canadian Army Major General Dany Fortin said.

European and United Kingdom medical regulators are yet to establish a causal link with rare instances of blood clotting disorders and the AstraZeneca jab.

Germany recently announced it was restricting vaccine doses for people under 65 after reports of people with "very rare but very serious cases of thrombosis [blood clots]".

The agency said it had identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events following use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, out of 18.1 million doses administered up to and including March 24.

Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency, said Wednesday that her Amsterdam-based agency continues to study reports of new cases as they come in and will provide a further assessment next week.

Of these, it said it had received 22 reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and eight reports of other thrombosis events with low platelets.

"That's still up in the air", said Fauci when asked whether the US will use the AstraZeneca vaccine doses.