DESPITE global concerns raised with the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccination, infectious diseases specialist, Joe Sasadeusz said the Federal Government should continue its rollout of the vaccine.

Dr Sasudeusz said he understood there were a number of safety concerns in the local community and internationally, but there were several aspects to consider.

“When you give vaccines to tens of millions of people, medical events will occur regardless, because they occur in the general population,” he said.

“The question really is whether these are related to the vaccine.

“The way to evaluate this is to establish whether a vaccine is likely to cause the sort of problem; to look at the timing of the medical event and to understand whether these medical events are occurring above the expected rate.”

Although there had been no instances recorded in Australia thus far, of the 17 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine administered in Europe, 37 people had experienced blood clotting.

This has sparked temporary suspensions of the AstraZeneca vaccination program in more than 10 countries.

“What we don’t know at the moment is whether the clots being reported are occurring at a greater rate than we would normally expect,” Dr Sasudeusz said.

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