The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presented new information to the vaccine advisers at a meeting on Thursday about the rates of a rare blood clot condition linked to the Covid vaccine.
The experts will consider new restrictions on the vaccine after the new data is available. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices could not advise that the vaccine be used in the United States or that it be restricted to older people. The panel could recommend that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna's vaccines should be preferred over Johnson & Johnson's shot, except in cases where people cannot access a different brand or who want it despite the risk.
The benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, as was stated by the FDA earlier this week.
54 people in the United States who received the shot before the end of August have been identified as having the clotting-related syndrome. The rate of the condition was 3.8 cases per million people given the vaccine. The rate had been thought to be lower.
The risk for the condition was highest in women ages 30 to 49, with about 1 in 100,000 recipients showing up. The rate at which the general population would expect a condition is not known, according to Dr. See.
The longest hospital stay for Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients was 132 days, and 36 of them were admitted to an intensive care unit. Eight of them died. There have been nine deaths since September.
Dr. See said that they were struck by how quickly the status deteriorated and resulted in death.
The people who died ranged in age from 28 to 62. All but seven of the women were white. Obesity was the most common underlying medical condition. Two of the people who died did not have medical problems.
Dr. See said there had been more cases identified since the earlier C.D.C. meetings.
The vaccine from Johnson & Johnson and the shot from AstraZeneca are not authorized in the United States and have been linked to an increased risk for the condition. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer have not been linked to it.
C.D.C. reported on side effects among children who have received the Pfizer vaccine in the last few weeks. The C.D.C. confirmed eight cases of myocarditis, or swelling of the heart muscle, and has an additional case under review.
The risk of myocarditis was reported to be higher for males between 16 and 29 years old. A few days after being fully vaccined, nearly 11 out of every 100,000 of them developed the condition. The C.D.C. said that the shots would cause an estimated 70 myocarditis cases but prevent 5,700, 215 hospitalizations and two deaths. Most recovered in a short period of time.
Five of the six younger children with known outcomes recovered from the symptoms. The eight confirmed cases were evenly split between males and females.
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The other serious side effects were reported by fewer than 60 children. Two children with cerebral palsy and other medical conditions died.
More people in the United States have received a single shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as their primary immunization than Moderna's vaccine and Pfizer's vaccine. Only 1.5 percent of people in the United States who have received a booster shot have gotten one from Johnson & Johnson.
Johnson & Johnson supports raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of this rare event and shares with regulators reports of side effects in people who have received the vaccine.
The vaccine should not be given to people who have had a problem with clotting after a first dose, according to the FDA. The benefits of the vaccine outweigh its risks according to the agency.
The vaccine was temporarily halted by federal officials because of concerns about the risk of blood clot. The shot was paused in other countries, and some suggested that women in the at-risk age groups should seek other vaccines.
The one-and-done format of the Johnson & Johnson shot has fallen out of favor in the United States despite early hopes that it would be easy to deploy in more isolated communities.
