UK Covid live news: MHRA should issue new guidance on AstraZeneca vaccine urgently, says health committee chair

Latest updates: call comes after trial of AstraZeneca vaccine on children aged six to 17 is paused amid concerns over links to very rare blood clots

9.44am BST

Prof Sir Kent Woods, the former chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, told LBC this morning that he had “no reservations” about the AstraZeneca vaccine and that he was happy for younger relatives to have it. He explained:

Covid itself - the infection itself - is known to be associated with a substantial increased risk of blood clots of various kinds.

At a time when the population has got lots of Covid going around, it’s very difficult to know what the actual background rate of these clotting events is without the vaccine.

9.28am BST

Good morning. As Channel 4 News revealed on Monday, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has been reviewing its advice about the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine following concerns about its links to a very rare blood clotting condition, and an announcement may be coming soon. On the Today programme this morning Jeremy Hunt, the chair of the Commons health committee, said a decision was needed as a matter of “urgency” - although he also stressed that in the past the MHRA had always acted quickly. He told the programme:

I think there is urgency; I think the one thing you can’t say about the MHRA is that they act slowly - they have been very, very fast and fleet of foot throughout this pandemic.

Related: Oxford/AstraZeneca jab could have causal link to rare blood clots, say UK experts

That’s certainly possible. We are seeing another vaccine coming in [Moderna], and further vaccines are approaching licensure, and I know that the UK has made contracts for quite a wide range of different vaccines.

As time goes forward we will have much more flexibility about who can be offered what.