Britain’s medical regulator has said that it is investigating an “extremely rare” type of blood clotting in the brain of five people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine, adding that no causal link has been made to the jab.

The MHRA will assess five reports of men aged 19 to 59 who have experienced a clot in their cerebral veins together with low blood platelet count. One of the five has since died.

The regulator said that use of the AstraZeneca vaccine should continue in the meantime and that “available evidence does not suggest that blood clots in veins (venous thromboembolism) are caused by Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca”.

They added that there was a possibility the clots could have been caused by Covid-19 itself.

Britain’s medical regulator has said that there is no proven link between blood clots and the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) added that the balance of benefits and known risks of the vaccine are favourable.

Matt Hancock has said it is a “mistake” for European countries to be “over-precautious” about the rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

Almost 20 countries, the majority of them in the EU, have paused the rollout following reports of people forming blood clots after having had the vaccine. Most are awaiting a pronouncement on the vaccine’s safety from the European Medicine Agency (EMA) today.

The health secretary told the Commons: “Of course the precautionary principle is an important one, but over-precaution when there are such huge benefits to vaccination is itself a mistake. What you have to do is take the overall public health into account.”

The EMA and the WHO have said that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh any risks.

People in their 40s have been told that they will have to wait until May to receive their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine amid supply delays in England.

Second doses for older and vulnerable people will be prioritised in coming weeks. So where does that leave you in the queue if you’re awaiting your first dose?

This online calculator offers an estimate:

Scotland will receive half a million fewer Covid vaccine doses than expected next month, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The First Minister says she held talks with AstraZeneca and Pfizer amid disruptions to vaccine supply chains.

Scotland is still on track to vaccinate all over-50s and people with underlying health conditions by mid-April.

Vaccines currently in use in the UK vaccines may not need to be modified to combat the spread of the P1 Brazil strain, a new study suggests. Samuel Osborne reports:

The slowdown to the UK’s vaccination programme next month has been forced by a shortfall in scheduled deliveries of AstraZeneca supplies from India, as well as the need to retest the stability of a further 1.7m doses, health secretary Matt Hancock says. Andrew Woodcock and Ashley Cowburn report:

GPs have warned that some patients in England are rejecting the AstraZeneca vaccine or simply not turning up for appointments, after a number of European countries suspended use of the jab over safety concerns, writes Samuel Lovett:

Northern Ireland should only see a ‘slight delay’ in its vaccine rollout programme because of supply issues, the vaccination chief said.

Patricia Donnelly told the Assembly’s health committee that more use of Pfizer jabs would be made pending the arrival of further AstraZeneca stock.

She added that more people will receive their first dose of vaccine in April – unlike in England, where under-50s have been told to wait until May.

“I think, worst case scenario, it probably puts us back by four weeks,” she said.

“The mitigation measures that we put in place we hope will only delay us by two weeks, so it won’t have a huge impact.”