Ireland's medicines watchdog received seven reports of suspected blood clots in combination with low platelets in people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine by June 9 last.

The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) said symptoms occurred approximately 1-3 weeks from vaccination with the first dose of the vaccine.

The types of symptoms reported include shortness of breath,severe and/or persistent headache, unusual skin bruising, abdominal pain, leg pain and leg swelling.

Cases occurred in both males and females, with a median age of 45 - ranging in age from 29 to 63 years.

In a small number, blood clots occurred in unusual locations, including in the brain (cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, CVST) and liver (hepatic and portal veins).

The people involved are either discharged or recovering in hospital after receiving specialist medical care.

It was confined to people over 50 after the very small risk of unusual blood clots emerged.

Around 460,000 people in their sixties will get a second shot of AstraZeneca before July 19.

Up to June 9, the HPRA received 9,470 reports describing suspected side effects associated with all four of the Covid vaccines which are being administered here.

It said the majority of regularly reported suspected side effects are consistent with the types of events typically observed following vaccination, including those described in the product information for the individual vaccines, and are mild to moderate in nature.

For reports evaluated which included information on outcome, approximately half of the suspected side effects were reported to have resolved or were resolving

For others, the suspected side effects had not yet resolved, or the outcome was reported as unknown at the time of initial reporting.