UCSF officials on Monday said a Bay Area man in his early 30s is recuperating from treatment for a blood clot that formed after he received the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.
The man went to the hospital with severe pain in his leg and lower back last week, 13 days after getting his J&J shot, according to UCSF officials.
As of Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported the condition in 17 people, 15 of them women, among the 8 million doses that have been administered nationally. It involves clots that occur together with low levels of blood-clotting platelets. It’s unclear, though, if there’s a connection between the vaccine and the clotting.
Three of the women previously identified died, and seven remain hospitalized.
U.S. health officials on Friday lifted an 11-day pause on COVID-19 vaccinations using J&J's single-dose shot, after scientific advisers decided its benefits outweigh the rare risk of blood clot.
The man at UCSF is making good progress and should be discharged within a few days, the hospital said in a statement.
Bloodwork showed he had the same syndrome as the other patients, although initial imaging did not show a blood clot, said UCSF spokeswoman Suzanne Leigh. Physicians later discovered a tiny clot, she said.
Dr. Andrew Leavitt, a UCSF hematologist, says the medical world has been gathering data on rare cases of blood clots associated with both the AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines, but why those clots are happening remains unclear.
"The exact mechanism is trying to be understood rapidly by the worldwide medical community," he said. "It includes low platelets and blood clots in funny locations."
As it recommended resuming J&J vaccinations, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its online vaccine information leaflets for would-be recipients and health workers.
— Polly Stryker and The Associated Press