Health ministry reassures populace on AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine following blood clot report

Luong Ngoc Khue, head of the Department of Medical Service Administration, said the vaccine’s potential side effects in certain cases would only occur within 28 days of inoculation, so people who have been vaccinated for more than a month should not be worried about it.

The assurance came after AstraZeneca, for the first time ever, admitted that its Covid-19 vaccine may cause blood clots in rare cases.

Khue said most people had been inoculated by AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine for several years (since the 2021-2022 period), so they "need not be too worried about side effects leading to blood clots."

Vietnamese authorities had forewarned of blood clots as a side effect during the Covid-19 vaccination campaign.

An expert from the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology also said approved vaccines have already gone through a stringent process of evaluation. The rate of side effects recorded following AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine injections is very low, according to the institute, and Vietnam has in fact given tens of millions of such shots to people, and only in some rare cases have non-life threatening blood clots been reported.

"It’s a very low chance," the expert said, adding that blood clots would only appear within 28 days following vaccination. Vietnam has already stopped its vaccination campaign using the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine as well, they added.

When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, Vietnam purchased 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, along with donated doses. By mid-2023, Vietnam had given out over 266.5 million vaccine shots, becoming one of the countries with one of the highest Covid-19 vaccination coverages in the world.