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Meet the Canadian doctors working to identify and treat the rare blood clots linked to COVID-19 vaccines
A McMaster University lab has become key to the country s efforts to identify rare cases of blood clotting linked to certain COVID-19 vaccines, and giving those affected the best possible treatment.
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A McMaster University lab that s studied clots for decades has become key to the country s efforts
Posted: Apr 19, 2021 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: April 19
The McMaster Platelet Immunology Laboratory is the only lab in Canada with the equipment and expertise to test for the rare blood clotting syndrome linked to some COVID-19 vaccines, known as vaccine-induced prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia, or VIPIT. (McMaster University)
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The very first of the 10 blood samples tested came back positive, so they ran the test again. It was only later that night, after Ishac Nazy and colleagues had identified the first case of a COVID vaccine-induced blood clot in Canada, that the situation struck him as “kind of historic.”
“Canada felt like it was protected from this, because it hadn’t happened here,” said Nazy, director of a McMaster University laboratory in Hamilton that is the only one in the country able to diagnose rare blood clotting issues related to COVID vaccines.
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