LONDON (BLOOMBERG) – The UK plans to offer under-40s an alternative to the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccination because of concerns about blood clots that so far have affected a tiny proportion of those receiving shots, a person familiar with the matter said.

The decision following a recommendation by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation may be announced as soon as Friday (May 7), according to the person. The precautionary measure comes just as authorities prepare to open up the inoculation programme to the under 40s, after the over 40s where invited to book their first shots this week.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has been the workhorse of the UK programme to date, and the new strategy means that where supplies permit, people aged under 40 will be offered vaccines by Pfizer-BioNtech or Moderna – the only two other shots with current approval for use in the UK.

The decision comes a month after the UK decided to offer under-30s alternatives to the AstraZeneca shot because of what officials described as “extremely rare” incidences of blood clotting. At the time, 79 cases had been recorded, including 19 deaths out of more than 20 million doses administered.

The company said at the time that it was “working to understand the individual cases, epidemiology and possible mechanisms that could explain these extremely rare events.” More recent data from April 28 shows that after some 28.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca shot had been delivered, there had been 242 cases of the blood clots, including 49 deaths.

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