Decrease in mortality from rare side effect

A large-scale international study co-led by Inselspital and the University of Bern investigated the very rare adverse cerebral venous occlusion (sinus venous thrombosis) after administration of the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Janssen/Johnson&Johnson vaccines. Neither vaccine has been used in Switzerland to date. The mortality rate due to this complication decreased from 61% to 42% after the mechanism of its onset was clarified in spring 2021. In very rare cases, a deficiency of blood platelets (thrombocytes) and at the same time a tendency to form thromboses (clustering of the platelets) increases after vaccination with SARS-CoV-2 vaccines from Oxford-AstraZeneca and Janssen/Johnson&Johnson. The most common of these are cerebral venous thromboses (sinus venous thromboses). When this phenomenon was newly discovered, the high mortality rate was the first thing that attracted attention. The global study led by the University Medical Center (UMC) Amsterdam and the Stroke Center at Inselspital, University Hospital Bern investigated the characteristics and mortality of different subsets of patients who experienced sinus venous thrombosis after vaccination with the two vaccines mentioned above.