NICOSIA, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus on Thursday reported its first two cases of thromboembolic events in people vaccinated against COVID-19, but scientist said the vaccines used were not to blame.
A spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Services, the Health Ministry department that documents the side effects of vaccines, said that none of the two people involved died.
She added that one of the cases was reported 14 days after a man had been administered the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The other case involved another, unidentified, vaccine, she said. Cyprus uses vaccines from three manufacturers -- Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Moderna.
Both patients are being treated with anti-clotting medication, she said.
Cyprus has already vaccinated 171,000 people, and side effects occurred in 122 cases only, she said.
Cyprus continues to use the AstraZeneca vaccine after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Wednesday that unusual blood clots should be listed as very rare side effects of Vaxzevria (formerly COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca).
It also said that the "benefit-risk balance of the medicine remains positive, and there is no association with thromboembolic disorders overall."
Constantinos Tsioutis, who leads the scientific team advising the Ministry of Health on handling the pandemic, said that the ratio of reported blood clot cases is one in 100,000, while the possibility of a person getting infected with coronavirus and becoming seriously ill is one percent.
Tsioutis said the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and added that he himself chose to be vaccinated with it.
In Cyprus, 4,000 out of a total of 25,000 people eligible for vaccination chose the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to Health Ministry spokeswoman Margarita Kyriakou.
She added that while all the available Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been administered within a short time, 11,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses made available to people aged over 61 have not been claimed.
President Nicos Anastasiades said that the government had ordered vaccines for two million people from four producers -- Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca.
The health minister has been authorized to negotiate on securing the Russian Sputnik V vaccine as soon as it receives the EMA's approval. Enditem