I've had the AZ vaccine 1st dose 3 weeks ago now and I keep getting very concerned by the ever changing picture; is it 1 in a million or 1 in 40000, or did these people have conditions that made this situation more likely... will we see an increase in the rate as we get more data too over the coming weeks a lot like we did with COVID.
All very unclear right now. I wish the case reports of all the people with blood clots were made available so everyone could review if they match the groups who have had the problems.
As to the difference, maybe they first vaccinated health professionals with AZ and UK mostly vaccinated older people with it, so different issues became apparent? It affects mostly younger women, so it would manifest pretty clearly with female nurses.
Everyone is jumping to focus on young females/genetics but it could really just be occupation related, most of these nurses will have their vacine shot on-site and continue their daily shift afterwards (where they stand orthostatic for several hours).
Also the mechanism which causes this seems to be better understood now - https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104840
"Vaccination with ChAdOx1 nCov-19 can result in the rare development of immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia mediated by platelet-activating antibodies against PF4, which clinically mimics autoimmune heparin-induced thrombocytopenia."
I will still get vaccinated with it if it's available in our country for me as I think the risk is worth it in my case. But if I was a woman under 60 and especially under 40 I would be hesitant to get vaccinated with AZ and probably wait for other vaccine.