With few additional cases of rare and serious blood clots seen over the last several days, health officials in the United States are expected to recommend the resumption of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Resumption of the shot will likely come with a warning about the unusual side effect which has stricken roughly one in every million of those who have received the vaccine, The New York Times reports.
A working group of experts assembled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will review data today and make their recommendation to the FDA.
When the group met last Wednesday, it reported six cases and one death among the 7.2 million recipients of the vaccine. At the time, the group decided to extend the pause of the shot to gather more data.
Since then, only a few additional cases have been reported. The FDA declined to divulge how many to the New York Times.
“We’ve now received more cases, but it isn’t an avalanche,” FDA acting director Janet Woodcock said on Thursday. “We’re not seeing a big surge, which is a great relief.”
When the FDA ordered the pause on April 13, Woodcock said she expected it to last a “matter of days” while the FDA and CDC investigated.
This week, the CDC reported two additional cases. On Tuesday, a woman in Oregon who had received the J&J vaccine before the pause died after developing a blood clot. On Wednesday, a female recipient in Texas was hospitalized with a blood clot.