Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci has said that so far there has been no confirmed case of blood clots related to any Covid-19 vaccine in the country.

Speaking on TVAM on Monday morning, Gauci said that there were two reports of blood clots after a vaccine was taken in Malta – one report after the person received the Pfizer jab, and another after the patients received the AstraZeneca jab.

Blood clotting was listed as a side-effect of the vaccine by the European Medicines Agency last week, but the risk remains exceptionally rare – the UK’s health authority estimated that a clot could happen in one in 100,000 young adults who get the vaccine.

This is the same as the risk of dying under general anesthesia, or roughly the risk of a young woman developing a blood clot within a week of taking the contraceptive pill.

Gauci said that many medicines have side-effects, but that their benefits are much higher than their risks, something which applies to Covid-19 as well.

She said that there are people who are not elderly who even after having the virus are feeling its effects, which is why we must remain vigilant in order not to get the virus.

Gauci also said that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is expected to arrive in Malta “in the coming days.”