KOCHI, April 21, 2021
A German researcher studying the rare blood clots from the Astrazeneca vaccine will now study similar effects from the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccine too, reported Reuters citing a statement from the researcher himself.
Andreas Greinacher, a transfusion medicine expert at Greifswald University, announced the collaboration after the European Medicines Agency said it would add a label to J&J’s vaccine warning of unusual blood clots with low platelet counts. AstraZeneca’s shot has a similar warning.
Greinacher is awaiting samples of the J&J vaccines to start his study, the report stated.
“We agreed today with (J&J) that we will work together,” Greinacher said during a news conference. “My biggest need, which I’ve expressed to the company, is I would like to get access to the vaccine, because the J&J vaccine is not available in Germany.”
Johnson & Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Greinacher’s new paper, not yet peer-reviewed, he suggests the technology behind AstraZeneca’s shot, some of its ingredients and the powerful immune reaction it induces, may contribute to a cascade of events that overpowers numerous mechanisms that normally keep the human immune system under control.
Both the AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines use a common cold virus called the adenovirus, to ferry instructions to cells to produce an immune response. J&J’s shot uses a human adenovirus, while AstraZeneca uses a chimpanzee adenovirus.