US identifies 28 serious blood-clotting cases in people given Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine

Over two dozen instances of serious blood clotting have been identified out of the more than 8.7 million recipients of Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 Janssen vaccine, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

In an online presentation on Wednesday, the public health agency said most of the 28 reported cases of blood clots with low platelet levels were in women aged 30 to 49. There were six cases in men.

Three people out of the 28 died and four remain hospitalized. A total of 19 cases involved blood clots in the brain.

The CDC said evidence suggests a "plausible causal association" between the US-developed vaccine and blood clots with low platelet counts.

In April, the US Food and Drug Administration asked states to pause their rollouts of the Janssen jab "out of an abundance of caution" after six female recipients of the vaccine, aged 18 to 48, developed blood clots.

After a safety review, the medicines regulator said later last month that the pause of the use of the vaccine should be lifted, adding in a statement that the jab is "safe and effective."

Nearly half of all people in the US – 153,448,316 – have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to government data.

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