The EU’s medicines regulator says unusual blood clots should be listed as a very rare side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19.

After a study looking at 86 European cases, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) concluded the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risk.

The report reflected data on 25 million Europeans administered with the jab.

The EMA could not list specific risk factors such as age or gender, but most blood clot cases were women under 60.

Separately, the UK’s vaccine advisory body said that under-30s there were to be offered an alternative jab to AstraZeneca due to the blood clots issue.

Some 79 people  had suffered rare blood clots after vaccination by the end of March in the UK – 19 of whom had died.