Oxford halts trial of AstraZeneca COVID vaccine in children and teenagers over blood-clotting issue

The University of Oxford has paused administering doses of the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with AstraZeneca PLC in a small U.K. study aimed at evaluating its safety and effectiveness in children and teenagers, to wait for further information on rare blood-clotting issues that have been found in a small group of adults that received it, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The trial was started in mid-February and involves more than 200 young people aged 6 to 17 years old, the paper said. It cited an Oxford spokesman as saying that the trial had not found any safety issues, but that broader concerns and a review of the vaccine by regulators in the U.K. and European Unions were behind the move. The European Medicines Agency said earlier it expects to update the public on its investigation of the blood-clotting issue later this week.

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