United States will allow Johnson & Johnson vaccine against Covid-19 to be used again

This report was updated at 6:06 pm to add information on lifting the suspension to the vaccine.

Health authorities lifted the 11-day suspension of the covid-19 vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson, following the recommendation of a panel of medical experts.

Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that the benefits of the single-dose vaccine outweigh the very rare risk of people experiencing blood clots.

Panel members said it is critical that younger women are informed of that risk so they can decide whether to choose another vaccine.

The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed with that recommendation.

European regulators earlier this week made a similar decision, deciding that the risk of clots was small enough to allow the launch of the J&J injection.

Of nearly eight million people vaccinated before the United States stopped the J&J vaccine, health officials discovered 15 cases of a very unusual type of blood clot, three of them fatal.

Health officials said they were aware of 15 cases of unusual clots since the government authorized the vaccine, and nearly 8 million injections were administered.

All were women, the majority under 50 years of age. Three died and seven remain hospitalized.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is seeking their advisers to help them assess the numbers and determine how great the risk of the vaccine really is, and how to balance that risk with the need to vaccinate millions against a virus that still infects tens of thousands of people every day in the country.