Emer Cooke, the Executive Director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Thursday afternoon that the agency’s safety committee had decided “clearly that this AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and effective” and that the benefits outweighed the potential risks.

The vaccine is not associated with an increased overall risk of thromboembolic events or blood clots, she added.

Cooke added, however, that based on the available data, “we still can not rule out a definite link between these cases (blood clot) and the vaccine.”

The director added that the EMA aims to conduct other observational studies to further investigate the issue. In addition, she called on people who have side effects to report it.

However, she reiterated the EMA’s position that “this vaccine is a safe and effective option for protecting citizens from Covid-19”
and that vaccinations with AstraZeneca have been shown to be at least 60% effective in preventing coronavirus disease.